Reichenbach, Prior and Hybrid Tense Logic

In this paper we combine central insights of Prior and Reichenbach in the framework of hybrid tense logic. We do so in a way that overcomes a well-known defect of Reichenbach’s original tense schema, namely that it gives multiple representations to sentences in the Future perfect and the Future-in-the-past. Moreover, we define an iterative schema that allows for multiple points of reference, a possibility noted by Prior and demanded by Comrie, and sketch how this schema can be generalized to a shift-and-restrict paradigm in which special propositional symbols (for adverbials and indexicals) act as restrictors on the range of tense operators.