The Algebra of Events

Bach, Eric

doi:10.1002/9780470758335.ch13

Cited by 82 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In summary, very few classes of free adverbials, if indeed any, "can depend on every verb", and attempts to distinguish reasons for not satisfying this criterion have 5 We use Emmon Bach's (1986) term here, which generalises events and states.…”

Section: Specificitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Against the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Functional Generative Description

Przepiórkowski

2016

The Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics

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The aim of this paper is to critically examine the tests used to distinguish arguments from adjuncts in Functional Generative Description (Sgall et al., 1986) and to question the general usefulness of this distinction. In particular, we demonstrate that neither of the two tests used in FGD to distinguish inner participants from free adverbials (i.e. tests based on iterability and specificity) stands up to scrutiny, and we also point out practical problems with the application of the dialogue test, used to distinguish semantically obligatory and semantically optional dependents. Since these tests are among the most frequently cited tests for the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in contemporary linguistics, these results cast a shadow on the general validity of this dichotomy.

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Section: Specificitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Against the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Functional Generative Description

Przepiórkowski

2016

The Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics

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“…Both aspects can be seen in (18), where the relation LOCATED-AT and the function SURFACE define the content of their arguments x and y as well as their relative ranking (in this case y higher than x). A more complex example is given in (19), the lexical entry for the verb show, where s is a variable over situations (or eventualities in the sense of Bach (1986) The entry for the inchoative copula get given in (20) illustrates the fact that not only variables of type e (individuals or eventualities) can support a Theta-Role: The copula requires has an Argument Position for the predicative, a condition that is expressed by λP based on the one-place predicate variable P. In Mary got sick for example, this position is occupied by the Adjective sick.…”

Section: Two Conceptions About Theta-rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thematic roles - universal, particular, and idiosyncratic aspects

Bornkessel¹,

Schlesewsky²,

Comrie³

et al. 2006

Semantic Role Universals and Argument Linking

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Thematic Roles (or Theta-Roles) are theoretical constructs that account for a variety of well known empirical facts, which are more or less clearly delimited. In other words, Theta-Roles are not directly observable, but they do have empirical content that is open to empirical observation. The objective of the present paper is to sketch the nature and content of Theta-Roles, distinguishing their universal foundation as part of the language faculty, their language particular realization, which depends on the conditions of individual languages, and idiosyncratic properties, determined by specific information of individual lexical items.According to general agreement, including traditions of various sorts, the properties Theta-Roles are to account for have to do with the morpho-syntactic realization of semantic relations between parts of complex linguistic expressions. A rather simple case in point is given in (1), where the relation between Brecht, Villon and adaptation in (a) is semantically parallel to that between the corresponding elements in the morpho-syntactically different verbal construction (b):Theta-Roles have to account for the parallel properties as well as the differences of these relations. For general reasons, the underlying theoretical framework must meet the usual conditions of parsimony and adequacy, where (A) Parsimony requires stipulations to be minimized, and (B) Adequacy requires all relevant empirical facts to be taken into account.According (A), the theory of Theta-Roles must not set up principles or entities that follow from independently motivated theoretical assumptions, according to (B) it has to capture semantic, syntactic, morphological, and other phenomena that are related to Thematic Roles, a requirement that is clearly in need of clarification, as there is no simple and a priori delimitation of the phenomena to be included. Some preparatory observations might be helpful in this respect. Five Basic Observations(I) Interface Character: The correspondence between semantic relations and morpho-syntactic properties is not necessarily simple and uniform. Thus, the same semantic properties might be realized by different formal means, a shown in (1), and the same formal means might realize different semantic relations, as illustrated in (2), where the recipient of anziehen (dress) shows up as direct object seinen Sohn in (a) and as indirect object seinem Sohn, marked by the oblique Case in (c), while the direct object den Mantel realizes the object of the action in (b) as well as (c):(2)(a) Peter zieht seinen Sohn an (Peter dresses his son) (b) Peter zieht einen Mantel an (Peter puts a coat on) (c) Peter zieht seinem Sohn einen Mantel an (Peter helps his son to put a coat on)

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“…However, without further assumptions, we might also expect sentence (8) to have the unacceptable analysis in (10). (9) Obviously, sentence (8) can only mean (9) in event semantics, with narrow scope existential closure over the event variable, but not (10), where the existential quantifier over events takes wide scope over the quantificational noun phrase nobody. More generally, as is evident with any non-upward-monotone quantifiers (nobody, less than five teachers, exactly one student, between two and five men), overt quantificational arguments do not show scope ambiguities with the existential quantifier over events, and are required to take it in their scope.…”

Section: The Event Quantification Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Event Semantics and Abstract Categorial Grammar

Winter

Zwarts

2011

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. Common versions of event semantics do not naturally explain the obligatory narrow scope of existential quantification over events, or the typically event-oriented modification by adverbials. We argue that these linguistic properties reflect a distinction between overt arguments and purely semantic slots like the event argument. The distinction is naturally captured in Abstract Categorial Grammar (ACG) [1,2, 3,4], which manipulates pairs of forms and meanings, a.k.a. linguistic signs. The sign's pheno-type defines syntactic arguments and the sign's semantic type standardly defines semantic arguments. Both these concrete types are standardly derived by induction on the structure of one abstract type (category) of the sign, by assigning pheno-level and semantic types to basic abstract types. We assume that semantic event arguments are only introduced by the (basic) result type of the verb's abstract type, whose pheno-level type is standardly a string. Consequently semantic event arguments lack a correlate in the verb's pheno-type. Both narrow-scope existential quantification over events and the orientation of event modifiers follow rigorously from this assumption. Based on this architecture, we develop simple accounts of adverbial modification, nominalization and passive constructions in an ACG fragment. Basic Assumptions of Event SemanticsThe following sentence illustrates a simple case of adverbial modification. In this analysis, an intransitive verb like dance denotes a binary relation between its overt subject argument and a covert event argument. Adverbial expressions are assumed to be one-place predicates over events, which apply to the verbal event argument using conjunctive (intersective) modification. To guarantee that the whole sentence denote a proposition, Davidson introduces an existential quantifier over events, commonly referred to as an existential closure operator.

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The Algebra of Events

Cited by 82 publications

References 15 publications

Against the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Functional Generative Description

Against the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Functional Generative Description

Thematic roles - universal, particular, and idiosyncratic aspects

Event Semantics and Abstract Categorial Grammar

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