Chapter published in:
The Expression of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality in Albert Camus’s L'Étranger and Its Translations / L'Étranger de Camus et ses traductions : questions de temps, d'aspect, de modalité et d'évidentialité (TAME): An empirical study / Etude empirique
Edited by Eric Corre, Danh Thành Do-Hurinville and Huy Linh Dao
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa 35] 2020
► pp. 118–142

Temporal prominence demotion in updating imparfait uses in L’Étranger

| Universität zu Köln
We investigate certain time updating uses of the French Imparfait in Camus’ L’Étranger which express ongoing eventualities but also update narrative time. Our focus lies on progressives with narrative features without an explicit marking of the update. We apply the prominence-based temporal account of Becker & Egetenmeyer (2018) and concentrate on the level of relations between time points. Using this approach, we determine the prominence value of the reference points the imparfaits introduce. In the described uses, the prominence value is demoted to minimally prominent within its domain. This has important consequences for the temporal structure of the passage they occur in as the prominence demoted reference point is not available as an anchor for following temporal updates. A comparison with two Spanish translations of L’Étranger supports our analysis.
Keywords: temporal discourse structure, prominence, tense, imparfait, L’Étranger , French, Spanish
Published online: 11 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/lis.35.07ege
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