The concept of 'situation time', and the concept of 'orientation time' (or 'time of orienta¬tion') — roughly speaking, a 'known' time to which a situation time can be related bv a tense. The elements of the framework of the tense theory used in this book arc outlined here. These include, centrally, the notions of 'time | 490 9. Temporal subordination in the various time-zones forms express T-posteriority to the central orientation time or to another pseudo-t0 and therefore function as pseudo-t0 s themselves. If I get caught by the police I will tell them that they re making a mistake. The present tense T-locates the situation of making a mistake simultaneous with the situation of telling. The present tense is used because the situation time of will tell is treated as a pseudo-t0. If I get caught by the police I will tell them that my solicitor will prove to them that they re making a mistake. The future tense of will prove T-locates the proving posterior to the pseudo-t0 set up by will tell and the present tense of are making a mistake locates the mistake-making simultaneous to the pseudo-t0 set up by will prove. What I ll tell them is that if I ever get seriously ill I will tell the board at once that I m going to resign because I feel incapable of continuing my work as general manager. This recursive mechanism will be discussed in more detail in 22. It needs stressing that the relations expressed by the underlined and italicized verb forms in the above examples are T-relations expanding a domain. The fact that the same verb forms can also express a relation to t0 when they are used as absolute tense forms is irrelevant to this. Relations to t0 are not T-relations expanding a domain. There is indeed an essential difference between t0 and a post-present orientation time treated as a pseudo-t0. As explained in any relation starting from t0 is an absolute deictic relation . The same is not true of relations starting from a post-present orientation time functioning as pseudo-t0 . Such relations are expressed by pseudo-absolute tenses. These create a pseudo-past or pseudo-pre-present subdomain which can be expanded just like a real past or pre-present domain. In sum there exists a set of tenses that are used to express T-relations in a post-present domain. Because .
