Ordering Aspect and the temporal interpretation of Karitiana subordinate clauses

This paper addresses the issue of the temporal interpretation of subordinate clauses in Karitiana, a Tupi language spoken in Northwest Brazil (Storto 1999). We compare the temporal interpretation of subordinate clauses in Karitiana with that of other languages where subordinate clauses are (at least on the surface) tenseless. We establish three patterns of temporal construals, drawing the implications for possible analyses. We conclude that Karitiana shows a freedom of temporal interpretation that must be imputed to a covert semantically underspecified higher aspectual head (Ordering Aspect (ASPord)) in Rullman & Matthewson’s (2018) typology.