Tomorrow isn’t always a day away

Abstract

This paper explores non-utterance time readings of tomorrow, which, though unexpected under the standard pure indexical view of tomorrow, are attested in American English: e.g., “Last week, UPS said that the package would be delivered tomorrow.” This example has two readings: an utterance time reading, which can be felicitously followed by “I hope it arrives on time!”, and a non-utterance time reading, which can be followed by “But it never showed up!” I present experimental evidence that (1) non-utterance time readings of tomorrow are acceptable for many American English speakers and (2) not due to Free Indirect Discourse or indexical shift. Instead, I propose an analysis of tomorrow as anaphoric to a salient perspective.