THE LANGUAGE OF TIME: A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE (REMOTE)

All animals – except humans – live in a continuous present. Time is a human concept. And that concept is framed differently depending on the language we speak. English speakers tend to think of time in terms of distance – what a long day, we say. Spanish speakers, on the other hand, tend to think of time in terms of volume – what a full day, they say. Recounting the past, communicating in the present and discussing the future are at the core of our daily activities. Yet these boundaries are often blurred. This lecture will explore alternatives to time’s arrow from a linguistic point of view, through examples of languages whose tenses defy chronology with their reverse, or even circular, concept of time.