↑ Detailed Course Description

Event semantics: Introduction

Davidson (1967) proposes that the argument structure of (action) verbs contains a 'hidden' argument, the event argument, in addition to nominal arguments. This allows the treatment of adverbial modifiers [at the VP level, i.e. event modifiers] as predicates of events - they directly modify the event argument:

(1) Jones buttered the toast in the bathroom with a knife.
(2) (∃e) [butter(e, jones, toast) & in(e, bathroom) & with(e, knife)]

In so-called Neo-Davidsonian event semantics, starting with Parsons (1990), event participants are added via thematic roles. Events are taken to hold or culminate, they can be broken down into subevents and adverbial modifiers can predicate over subevents.

(3) (∃e) [buttering(e) & Agent (e, Jones) & Theme(e,toast) & With(e,knife) & Culm(e,before now)]

In the course, we will explore the consequences of positing events in the ontology, the treatment of adverbial modification associated with event semantics, and the idea of what it means for an event to consist of subevents.

Event types and properties of events

Vendler (1957) posits four different 'terms' [in English], which are associated with 'verbs in their dominant use':

(1) states [sta]: know the answer, stand in the corner
(2) activities [act]: run, eat, eat apples, eat soup
(3) accomplishments [acc]: run a mile, eat an apple
(4) achievements [ach]: reach the summit

The division between different types of events (in the broader sense, meaning eventualities), can be diagnosed by the (in)compatibility with particular temporal modifiers and the (in)acceptability of the English Progressive. Whereas activities and accomplishments readily appear in the Progressive (He is pushing the cart. He is eating a sandwich.), states and achievements do not (#He is being tall. #He is finding a coin.). Furthermore, only states and activities, but not accomplishments and achievements are compatible with for-adverbials, whereas the opposite holds for in-adverbials (5).

(5) run a mile \#for/in an hour, reach the summit \#for/in an hour

Vendler's four-way distinction has been taken up in the literature and modified, sometimes also depending on the different area of language looked at. Bach (1981, 1986), Verkuyl (1993) and others, for example, make a three-way distinction between states, processes (act), events (acc, ach). Discourse theories (e.g. Kamp & Reyle 1993, Lascarides & Asher 1993) argue that there are main differences between states and events (act, acc, ach) in the way they behave in discourse.

A battery of tests for determining the (inner) aspectual properties of events has accumulated over the years. These include the already mentioned for-/in-phrase test, but also two types of conjunction tests, the aspectual verbs test and the Progressive/imperfective paradox test, among others. The mechanisms of these tests need to be explained on the background of a theory of the aspectual properties which they attest.

Event modification

After Davidson's seminal work, a lot of research (both in and outside the /Neo-/Davidsonian semantics) was based on the compatibility of particular event predicates with certain modifiers. Event modifiers often modify semantic components that are more tightly related to one of the roles of the respective predicates. Thus we have agent-oriented modifiers (deliberately, aggressively), or theme-oriented ones (completely, deeply), and the compatibility of event predicates with such modifiers has been used to argue for the implicit presence of the respective roles. Consider the following examples from Landman (2000). The first example illustrates a type of data traditionally used to show that state verbs do not subcategorize for agents because they do not combine with agent-oriented manner modifiers, and that no event argument is present in the predication involved. Landman uses the second example to argue that it is actually possible to have manner modification of stative verbs, and concludes that stative predicates also come with an event argument.

(15) a. *John resembled Sue carefully.
b. Mary loves John passionately.

Katz (2008) argues against this view, showing that the way manner modifiers compose with stative predicates is not the same as the way they modify events.

Similarly, the compatibility with a temporal modifier is a sign of having a temporal interval. Rothstein (1999) uses temporal modification to show that copular predicates with adjectives are atemporal. Maienborn (2007) uses temporal and spatial modification to argue that there are two types of states, one (Kimian states) which involves no reference, no event argument and the denotation of which is not available for perception (among other properties), and another (Davidsonian states), which includes states that are referential, involve an event argument and are available for perception.

Scales vs. event structure

What does it mean, then, for an event to be telic? One way to look at this is the scalar approach to events (Krifka 1989, 1998, Verkuyl 1993, Hay et al. 1999, among many others). Events can be associated with incremental change along a path or a scale, can be `measured out'. A complement of the verb, e.g. the internal argument, provides a scale, that is responsible for an event being telic (with a closed scale or a scale with an upper bound) or atelic (an open scale, a scale with no upper bound or no scale):

(6) She ate (for/*in an hour).
(7) She ate the apple (*for/in an hour).
(8) She ate apples (for/*in an hour).

Another way to look at it is the event structure approach. Event structure approaches assume that an event can be decomposed into subevents associated with processes, states and combinations of these. For example, an activity is associated with a process part, an accomplishment with a process leading up to a (result) state. Moens & Steedman (1988) propose that any event is made up of (parts of) an event nucleus, consisting of a preparatory process, a culmination and a consequent state.

Event structure approaches handle ambiguities of adverbial modifiers like quickly, rudely, clumsily, again, almost or temporal for-adverbials, in terms of structural (scope) instead of lexical ambiguity (see Dowty 1979, Pustejovsky 1991, von Stechow 1996, Eckardt 1998, Ernst 1998, Rapp & von Stechow 1999, Kratzer 2005, Beck 2005, among others). For example, the adverb again can be ambiguous between a repetitive and a restitutive reading, depending on the verbal predicate it combines with:

Pustejovsky (1991) proposes that the restitutive reading is only possible with complex events, where again modifies the transition from a process to a state (the result state of an acc/ach). Under this reading, then, again scopes over the result state. With the repetitive reading, on the other hand, again modifies simple states or processes or the process part of a complex event (an acc). In this case, again scopes over the process and the result state together.

The event structure approach has been subjected to some criticism, e.g. by Jäger & Blutner (2000), Zwarts (2006), among others. Many arguments against event structure primarily question that lexical accomplishments and achievements can be directly decomposed (in the syntax). There is less debate about syntactically created accomplishments, since these are obviously structurally more complex. However, it is not quite clear that it is necessary to refute to the complex structure of events in order to capture notions like telicity or the ambiguity of particular modifiers. For example, Zwarts (2006) holds that to capture particular properties of events, like telicity, it is not sufficient to simply state that events can be simple or complex, but the nature of the scale associated with the event (an incremental path) is relevant. He furthermore claims that looking at scalar structures dispenses with decomposing events into subevents.

What, then, is the main differences between these two approaches and are they really incompatible? Scalar approaches hold that some linearly ordered structure provided by (part of) some complement of the verb is responsible for measuring out the event in an incremental way and thus for determining whether the event is telic or atelic. Any event can be linked to a scale, the properties of which can determine whether or not the event is telic. However, this idea is generally compatible with the idea of decomposing events into subevents. Rothstein (2004), for example, proposes that the formation of incremental chains is a crucial ingredient of event types involving a culmination. During the course we will explore the differences and similarities between these two approaches.

Quantity properties of events

Based mostly on an event-structure approach to eventualities, Krifka (1989, 1998) presents an account which tackles the issues of telicity at the level of properties of quantity of the predicates describing eventualities. He takes a mereological view (putting the part-whole relation in the core of the formal system), and defines certain properties that he considers building blocks of the inner aspect, such as quantization and cummulativity. The formal system he develops is intended to capture the properties of different types of events in terms of these notions. This very powerful, although at the same time sometimes unnecessarily complicated system captures the contribution of event participants and modifiers to the aspectual properties of the aggregate predicate.

Borer (2005) departs from similar positions, but provides a simpler theory of inner aspect. She takes a general perspective on the properties of quantity opposite to the traditional one. In her view, mass is the most primitive type of quantity, and all other types are derived by imposing certain structures (i.e. via certain operations) over the mass. Operations she assumes are division (the equivalent of the power-set in a mereological domain) and quantification (composing a quantifier or a numeral with a predicate that has undergone division). For Borer, every lexical meaning is mass, and all other types of quantity have to be derived compositionally, through syntax. In Borer's theory, mass and divided mass predicates have the property of homogeneity (cumulative and divisive), and correspond to the traditional notion of atelic predicates (at least according to the tests of telicity). Quantified predicates are non-homogeneous (though sometimes still cumulative or divisive), and they correspond to the traditional notion of telic predicates.

We will present a more detailed view of the syntactic structures responsible for particular semantic effects and the mechanisms these effects take place. Curious facts from aspectually transparent languages are nicely captured by her theory.

Event delimitation in space and time

We saw that to diagnose the difference between particular types of events, temporal in- and for-adverbials are used. This raises the general question why this is so and what is at the basis of this diagnostics. In the course we will explore the effect of different types of temporal modifiers in combination with events.

Many temporal modifiers serve to delimit an event in time. Similar effects can be found in the spatial domain with expressions like adpositional phrases (PPs):

(13) He pushed the cart (*in/for) two hours.

(14) He pushed the cart to the store (in/*for) two hours.

Similar to the spatial delimiters, temporal modifiers often delimit the temporal extent of the event, and in this way change the properties of its quantity. Krifka (1998) analyzes expressions of the type for x time as extensive measure functions applied to the temporal interval of an eventuality. We will try to go one step further, and show that the semantics of these expressions might be somewhat more complex, involving a commeasuring operation, which maps between units of different types.

Argument-adjunct asymmetries

There is a crucial difference between particular kinds of event participants:

(10) *(Joanna) sliced *(the bread) (with the knife) (in the dining room).

A general distinction can be made between arguments (obligatory event participants) and adjuncts (optional event participants). However, there is also a difference between adjuncts that are event participants and adjuncts that are not.

Two important aspects can be observed in the notion of obligatoriness. One is the obligatory overtness of certain expressions lexicalizing certain event participants, and the other is the obligatory participation of certain event participants in the respective type of events. With respect of the former, a number of languages show a general obligatoriness of an overt realization of the direct object (e.g. Chinese, Turkish). Similarly, in a number of languages, the subject needs to be overtly marked (the non-subject-drop languages, e.g. English or German).

(11) a. Lisi zai chang ge Mandarin
'Lisi is singing'
(lit. 'Lisi is singing song')
b. ta zai pao bu
'He is running'
(lit. 'He is running step')

(12) a. *(He) wants to go to the supermarket.
b. *(They) didn't know the answer.

Koenig et al. (2003) take the latter sense of obligatoriness as one that is more relevant for the formulation of the semantic categories of adjuncts and arguments. They argue that the obligatoriness of a participant for a particular event is a property associated with all arguments, and only with some adjuncts (those specifying the location and time for example). In order to eliminate the obligatory adjuncts, they combine this sense of obligatoriness with the notion of specificity of a participant for a type of events. In a slightly simplified formulation, the smaller the class of events that involve a certain participant role, the more specific this role is for any particular event that includes it. They take this notion of specificity to be characteristic of arguments only. Participants that are both obligatory and (sufficiently) specific for a particular event surface linguistically as its arguments, and all the other participants are realized as adjuncts.

We will discuss this view in the light of more decompositional approaches to the syntax and semantics of events (e.g. Hale & Keyser 1993), and show that there is a number of participant roles, and entire participants, that can incorporate into the verb (usually under the condition that they are generic). When only the expression introducing a participant (the preposition or the inherent case marker) incorporates into the verb, this participant receives the status of an argument. We show how Koenig et al.'s notion of specificity of participants can be derived from an analysis along these lines.

↑ Potential Presentation Topics

Differences between scalar approaches
Krifka (1998), Hay et al. (1999), Zucchi & White (2001), Verkuyl (2005), (Kennedy & McNally (2005), Zwarts (2006), Pinon)

Events vs. states and different types of states
Landmann (2000), Mittwoch (2005), Maienborn (2007), Katz (2008)

Degree achievements
Hay et al (1999), Kennedy & Levin (2008), Rothstein (2008), (Dowty (1979))

Properties of quantity
Krifka (1989, 1998), Borer (2005)

Mass and count across categories
Bach (1981, 1986), Link (1983), Krifka (1989), Zwarts (2005)

Events in discourse
Lascarides & Asher (1993), de Swart (1998), (excerpts from Kamp & Reyle (1993))

Which participants incorporate into the verb, and which do not?
Hale & Keyser (1993), Kiparsky (1997), Harley (2005)

Manner modification as a test for event (sub-)types
Landman (2000), Adger & Tsoulas (2000), Katz (2008), (Eckardt (2003))

Modifiers and delimitation of events
Krifka (1989, 1998), Rothstein (2004), Kratzer (2005), Zwarts (2006)

The ambiguity of again
von Stechow (1996, 2001), Jäger & Blutner (2000), Huitink (2003), (Kamp & Rossdeutscher (1994), Fabricius-Hansen (2001), Beck (2005))

Modification of result states
Pustejovsky (1991), Rapp & von Stechow (1999), Kratzer (2000), (again-literature)

Spatial modification
Fong (2001), Kracht (2002), Zwarts (2005), (Bierwisch (1988), Wunderlich (1991))

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