The speaker’s viewpoint on events

Abstract Based on Wolof data, this chapter introduces a new framework to account for the various functions of TAM markers in discourse while maintaining a unitary definition for each of them. This framework relies on a new functional definition of assertion, operationalizing the speaker’s viewpoint and the time of speech as the founding parameters of the default frame of reference for any utterance. These two parameters function as the source of the modal and temporal specifications of the utterance. Their varying salience for a same TAM marker is shaped by the context of use. Applied to the Wolof verbal system, this approach makes it possible to account for the various uses of the zero-tense, ranging from a narrative to a subordinating mood through various forms of subjective or intersubjective modality. Applied to the perfect, presentative, and to the imperfective suffix, this framework also reveals regular mechanisms connecting aspect, tense, modality, and stance.