Aspectual classes and aspectual composition book

A theory of aspectuality draws together into a coherent whole the authors thinking on the subject over the last twenty years, and will interest all those working on aspect and the semantics of noun phrases. It explores the evidence used to make such analogies, namely, the quantificational features of deverbal nouns, as each of the deverbalizing devices in english has its own aspectual qualities. However, such classifications often over or undergenerate, and do not necessarily capture the temporal properties aspectual classifications are based on. Aspectual class shifts also called eventtype shifts. And in order for someone to browse through a book she must at least have turned more than one page. Vendler kept his classes at the lexical level, whereas i wanted to get rid of the opposition between imperfective and perfective aspect as lexical properties. Frontiers formal semantics in the neurology clinic. This paper addresses how these linguistic functions influence the acquisition of spanish aspectual past tenses preterito indefinido and preterito imperfecto by mandarin chinese. Aspectual inquiries is a highly coherent edited volume that contains important contributions to our understanding of aspectual distinctions in the lexicon, in the grammar, in i expect the book to be widely read in the generative linguistic community because of its relevance to the discussion on functional categories. Aspectual classes and aspectual composition article pdf available in linguistics and philosophy 121. The development of dynamicity in the acquisition of spanish. For example, in talking about a bird flying, i may say in english the birdjew, the bird wasjying, or the bird was injight.

Speaking about verb classes does not exclusively mean a semantic similarity. The role of aspect and aspectual class in the temporal interpretation of narratives is a topic which has been studied from various points of view, as can be seen in depraetere 1995, dowty 1986. Such verbs have been assumed to select exclusively for eventive complements e. In estonian, transitive verbs fall into aspectual classes based on the type of casemarking of objects and adjuncts. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. Aspect is the semantic domain of temporal point of view in language.

He lent me the book until monday but i gave it back on. Studies in the composition and decomposition of event. Articulated vps and the computation of aspectual classes. The study of the linguistic reflexes of aspect has been an active field of research in various subdisciplines of linguistics, such as syntax, semantics including discourse theory and acquisition st. Vendlers aspectual classification based on the semantics of verb types will be briefly outlined. The book relates the morphosyntactic frames of verbs to properties typically associated with adjectives and nouns. Com monscnse knowledge about time falls into three catego ries. Is aspectual coercion a phenomenon that must be assumed as an option in the dynamics of the language comprehension process, or can ndings that seemingly support coercion be explained in other ways. Evidence from selfpaced reading and fmri yaoying lai yaoying. What evidence is there for determining a verbs aspectual class membership. Aspectual classes provide another perspective on the mannerresult verb.

David bourget western ontario david chalmers anu, nyu area editors. Krifkas 1989, 1998 mereological treatment, with input from dowty 1991 on incremental themes. It is argued that it not classes that play a role in the explanation of aspectual phenomena but rather some specific semantic factors from which aspectual classes can be constructed, in particular factors inherent to the lexical verb and to the determiners of. The acquisition of aspect in l2 is influenced by the properties of the lexicalaspectual class, coercion at the syntacticpragmatic interface and grounding information foreground and background in discourse. Although considering 3 aspectual classes and 3 temporal modifiers there are 6 possible transformations, we classified aspectual coercions into 3 types. Standard models of aspectual classes focus on event. Aspect, aspectual class, and the temporal structure of. Aspectual article about aspectual by the free dictionary. Verkuyl, aspectual classes and aspectual composition. Of or belonging to an aspect as an aspect of the verb classified under.

It shows further that a number of parallels can be drawn between different types of bounding and debounding in the nominal and verbal domains. According to the generallyaccepted process of aspectual composition, the aspectual class of the eventuality described by a complete sentence is derived by combining, in an order specified by the grammar, properties of the verb, its tense etc. Aspectuality composition terminativity drt aspectual classes state event. Reanalyzing the complement coercion effect through a. Nowadays there are two the most elaborate theories. Pdf aspectual classes and aspectual composition researchgate. In this paper i outline a theory of aspectual classes based on theories of scalar change hay et al. Part of the studies in theoretical psycholinguistics book series sitp, volume 32. Besides explicit grammatical markers of tense and aspect, many lexical and phrasal constructions impose specific constraints on event structure. Aspectual verbs like begin, start and finish form a subset of the class of coercion verbs implicated in the phenomenon of complement coercion.

Five different natural stands called also aspectual populations located at latitude between 37degrees49 and 37degrees53 n, longitude between 31degrees 15 and 31degrees20 e, and average elevation of 1600 m of taurus cedar were sampled aspectually flat, north, south, west, and east aspects in isparta region at southern part of turkey. Aspectual classes raffaella folli and heidi harley flavors of v christina schmitt semicopulas ma1 tungseth pp, fp and the telidatelic distinction in norwegian motion constructions part ii aspect, tense and discourse karen zagona the spatiotemporal path and aspectual composition hamida demirdache and myriam uribeetxebarria. This paper is a critical examination of vendlers wellknown aspectual classes states, activities, accomplishments, achievements. Introduction since vendler 1957, it has been commonly assumed that verbal predicates fall into various sorts of lexical aspectual classes, based primarily on the inherent, internal temporal structure the predicates impose on the events they. Alexander nakhimovsky aslaect, aspectual class, and the temporal structure of narrative language users can easily switch between alternative views of the same entity, the formalism should provide for alternative representations related by a simple and general operation. In the compositional framework it is argued that this changing takes place because of the difference between quantificational features of internal objects in 1a and 1b. Abstract this thesis is principally concerned with aspectual composition. Verb classes and aspectual classification blackwell publishing.

This paper discusses some of the ways in which the notion of compositionality is understood in the literature. The analyses help to understand the aspectual structure of estonian. The linguistic expressions that a speaker chooses present situations in a particular temporal light. Verbbased aspectual classes inherent lexical aspect, central to the aspect hypothesis, has as its basis vendlers 1967 classification of verbs into states, activities, accomplishments and achievements, according to.

Standard models of aspectual classes focus on event decompositional or featural distinctions. I will argue in the course of the book that lexical aspectual classes are not. Composition of htypes this and the next two sections summarize and elaborate on the proposals of nakhimovsky 1986, 1987a. Lexical aspect and multiple incremental themes john beavers the university of texas at austin 1. The kernel of the semantic representation of a predicate in role and reference grammar rrg is based on its characterization in terms of an aktionsart typology based on vendlers 1957 classes plus some additional elements from smith 1997 and dowty 1979.

The formal semantics introduced the idea of compositionality suggested first in frege 1892 into researches of the aspectual meanings of a clause. Aspectual roles and the syntaxsemantics interface carol l. Verbs are not the only determinant of aspec tual meaning, as pointed. The most important of these advances lie in, first, articulating aspectual roles as linguistic objects over which lexical semantic phenomena can be stated, and over which linking generalizations are stated. It is argued that it not classes that play a role in the explanation of aspectual phenomena but rather some specific semantic factors from which aspectual classes can be constructed, in particular factors inherent. The idea of aspectual composition has been widely accepted nowadays. A dynamic model of aspectual composition semantic scholar. Complement coercion as the processing of aspectual verbs. Vendler classes in grammar and utteranceinterpretation. The book consists of nine articles and covers topics in the composition of event predicates. Compositions of a verb and a delimiting object or xp. And dowtys 22e raises a problem if she stopped after one or two steps.