The temporality of the imperfect past tense of the subjunctive in relation to its point of reference: theoretical perspectives

Abstract In this paper, the perspectives by Bello (1841), Reichenbach (1947), Comrie (1990) and Rojo and Veiga (1999) on the reference point are applied to 350 data of subjunctive imperfect from 60 sociolinguistic interviews present in the Sociolinguistic Atlas of the AMREC region. The proposal is to: demonstrate to what extent these perspectives approach or distance themselves; empirically prove the application of the proposals, through qualitative-quantitative analysis; attest that time is a discursive category. Thereunto, similarities are observed in terms of explanatory power, logical resources and correlation between time and tense. The main difference resides in the vision of temporality: logical or discursive ones. Regarding to the data, 116 smples are ambiguous, if we consider Bello (1841), Reichenbach (1947) and Comrie (1990) proposals. By Rojo and Veiga (1999) proposal, because it is recursive and goes beyond sentence, it dissolves ambiguity and these data are analyzed discursively as previous or posterior or co-temporal to the reference point.