Browsing by Subject "Telicity"

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Noun incorporation and resultative verb compounding in Mandarin Chinese
(2020-05-08) Gu, Qianping, Ph. D.; Beavers, John T.; Wechsler, Stephen; Beaver, David; Kamp, Johan; Epps, Patience; Xie, Zhiguo
This dissertation investigates two types of compounding (in a broad sense) in Mandarin Chinese, namely, noun incorporation and resultative verb compounding. I argue that the object of the so-called S-le sentence structure is a case of noun incorporation. Syntactically, the object is constrained as it prefers a bare noun or a small noun phrase but rejects (indefinite) articles and quantifiers entirely. Semantically, the object has those properties that an incorporated noun typically has. It has narrow scope with respect to modality and quantifiers, a number neutral reading if it is a bare noun, and is discourse-opaque as it cannot serve as the antecedent of an anaphoric pronoun. The S-le sentence is also argued to be neutral regarding grammatical aspect as it allows a range of aspectual interpretations, depending on the context. The proposed semantic analysis for the S-le sentence is that it expresses informativeness, which is construed as a presupposition that the proposition is new to the hearer. The evidence for this analysis has three sources. One is the distribution that it is naturally used in a context where the proposition is new to the hearer, building on Liu (2002). The second piece of evidence is a Gricean effect when it is used in a context in which the proposition is not new to the hearer, generating an additional non-compositional evaluative meaning that resembles an implicature. The third piece of evidence is the significantly increased acceptability of S-le sentences with heavy NP-internal modifiers, which are usually syntactically dispreferred in S-le sentences, in an informative context when the speaker intends to provide new information. For resultative verb compounding, I investigate what semantics the two resultative morphemes, -wán and -diào, contribute to the aspectual meaning of the entire compound. I propose that -wán expresses termination and -diào culmination (or completion). Both yield telicity but through different avenues. Termination yields telicity by constraining the run time of event while culmination (or completion) sets the constraint on the patient.
Scope, scalarity, and polarity in aspectual marking : the case of English 'until' and Spanish 'hasta'
(2017-08) Bassa Vanrell, Maria Del Mar; Beavers, John T.; Chierchia, Gennaro; Beaver, David; Kamp, Hans; Wechsler, Stephen
This dissertation explores how languages express durations of time and the significant cross-linguistic variation displayed in words describing temporal duration with otherwise quite similar meanings. Specially, I examine 'until'-like phrases that bound events in time. These phrases are puzzling because across languages they typically only modify atelic predicates and not telic predicates. Yet they are acceptable with telic predicates if the predicate is negated, and in that case they furthermore generate a factive inference that the event described by the predicate must come about at a future time. Additionally, some languages, like Greek, use two distinct lexical words, one for atelic predicates and one for telic predicates. Three major prior proposals have been posited: (i) a lexical ambiguity account wherein there is a positive 'until' and a negative 'until', (ii) a monosemy account wherein 'until' is a type of universal quantifier over times that interacts scopally with negation, and (iii) a monosemy account wherein 'until' is a type of measure phrase over an existentially-quantified event. However, each approach fails to generalize appropriately. I revisit these three theories by examining the behavior of English "until"-phrases vis-à-vis durative "for"-adverbials, as well as 'until' counterparts in languages that acquire a superset or a subset of the interpretations of English "until", such as Spanish "hasta" and Greek "mehri". I propose a monosemy account that draws on insights from all three prior analyses. The key insight is that there is parameterization in the quantification that 'until' words in different languages exhibit. English "until" is universal in nature subject to a scope economy constraint. Spanish "hasta" is existential in nature subject to a plurality constraint in positive environments. Both universal and existential 'until' allow for negated telic predicates but the latter admits a wider set of readings and also permits lexical specialization of 'until' under negation, as found in Greek. Ultimately, irrespective of their quantification, English "until" and Spanish "hasta" activate temporal scalar alternatives that I argue derive factive inferences as an epiphenomenon of independent scopal interactions between the alternatives, polarity, and covert exhaustification-based operators of the inferential mechanism.
Syntactic distribution of English denominal verbs
(2021-05-07) Denlinger, Kristin; Beavers, John (Associate professor of linguistics); Wechsler, Stephen
Denominal verbs have been at the forefront of English word formation and lexical semantic literature. A common approach to deriving the structural representation of a denominal verb’s meaning involves using the canonical thematic role the parent noun plays to choose what type of event structure it should be slotted into. This predicts that the nominal role interpretation should constrain what type of argument structures the corresponding denominal verb can occur in. Specifically, locative denominal verbs should show evidence of being associated with accomplishment event structures, while instrument denominal verbs should show evidence of being associated with activity event structures. The present study empirically tests this prediction by first subjecting denominal verbs to a range of telicity tests and then looking at tokens of different types of denominal verbs in a large corpus to quantify the range of their argument structures and semantic entailments. Ultimately, the results provide modest evidence for attributing accomplishment event structures to locatives and activity event structures to instrumentals, especially for literal uses of these verbs.