According to Reichenbach, tense is not a temporal operator but a complex structure built from a small set of primitives: the event time (
E), the speech time (
S), the reference time (
R), and two relations that can hold between these times, simultaneity (symbolized with a comma) and anteriority (symbolized with an underscore). One of these relations holds between
S and
R, and one relation holds between
R and
E. The relation between
S and
E is not represented but is inferred from the first two. With this small set of primitives, Reichenbach was able to define the set of possible English tenses. For example, the simple past, future, and present tenses have the structures [
E, R_
S], [
S_
R, E], [
S, R, E], respectively. The contribution of
R becomes crucial in the analysis of complex tenses, such as the future and past perfect (which Reichenbach called "anterior future" and "anterior past"), where
R overlaps neither
E nor
S. For example, the past perfect in "At 3:00 p.m., John had (already) called" has the structure [
E_
R_
S], where the calling time
E precedes the reference time
R (3:00 p.m.), which in turn is before
S.
The case of the future perfect is a little more complex.
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