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Lecture 19

Lecture 19. Ling 442. Exercises. Provide logical forms for the following: Everything John does is crazy. Most of what happened to Marcia is funny. Do you find the following ambiguous? If so, say what readings are available for each. Jones almost ran to the store. Jones almost killed Bill.

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Lecture 19

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  1. Lecture 19 Ling 442

  2. Exercises • Provide logical forms for the following: • Everything John does is crazy. • Most of what happened to Marcia is funny. • Do you find the following ambiguous? If so, say what readings are available for each. • Jones almost ran to the store. • Jones almost killed Bill.

  3. Neo-Davidsonian developments • Davidson: the main predicate gets an event argument (as well as nominal arguments). e[hit (j, b, e)] • Neo-Davidsonian: the main predicate (like verb/adj) is a one-place event predicate. We then posit “thematic roles” as two-place predicates relating events and individuals. e[hit (e) & agent (j, e) & patient (b, e)]

  4. Adding tense and DP quantifiers • If tense is represented as an operator, that can be included in the representation. • Nominal quantifiers can also be included. • John left. • Past e[Leave (e) & Agent (j, e)] • Every student left. (4) or (5) • Past [every x: student (x)] e [Leave (e) & Agent (x, e)] • Past e [[every x: student (x)] [Leave (e) & Agent (x, e)]] 6. [every x: student (x)] Past e [ [Leave (e) & Agent (x, e)]]

  5. Events and perception verbs (36) Jones saw Lina shake the bottle. ee[see (e) & experiencer (j, e) & stimulus (e’, e) & shake (e) & agent (l, e) & patient (the_bottle, e)] It makes sense to say that with perception verbs, what the subject/agent sees is an event.

  6. Incremental themes (part 1) Verbs like eat, destroy, etc. describe events that apply to the object theme in an incremental fashion (at least in idealized circumstances). The thematic role  incremental theme (ITH)

  7. Incremental themes (part 2) Atelic (= unbounded) event sentence/predicate For any event e such that e verifies e[eat(e) & x[apples (x) & Agent (m, e) & ITH(x, e)], all substantially large subevents e1 of e also verify the same sentence. [subinterval property] Telic (= bounded) event sentence/predicate For any event e such that e verifies e[eat(e) & x[apple (x) & Agent (m, e) & ITH(x, e)], all proper sub-event e1 fail to verify the same sentence. [no subinterval property]

  8. Incremental themes (part 3) • What this means is that a sub-event of eating apples is also an eating-apples event, but no proper sub-event of a eating-an-apple event is an eating-an-apple event. • The question is how we obtain this fact compositionally.

  9. Incremental themes (part 4) • The same structural relationship holds between a DP that describes a “delimited” object (a/the apple) and a DP that describes a “non-delimited” object (apples). • That is, proper-portions of “apples” are “apples”. But no proper-portions of “an apple” are (instances of) “an apple”

  10. Formalization (1) ⟦apple⟧ = {x | x is an apple} ⟦apples⟧ = {x | x is “apples” (any amount of apple)} For any e  ⟦apple⟧ and subpart e1 of e, e1 ⟦apple⟧ For any e  ⟦apples⟧ and substantially large subpart e1 of e, e1⟦apples⟧

  11. Formalization (2) • If  is ITH and if ⟦ (e, x)⟧ = true, for any proper sub-event ⟦e1⟧ of ⟦e⟧, there is exactly one proper-part ⟦x1⟧ of ⟦x⟧ such that ⟦ (e1, x1)⟧ = true • This means that Mary eats an apple does not have the subinterval property and is a telic sentece. • Mary eats apples, on the other hand, has the subinterval property and is an atelic sentence.

  12. Formalization (3) • Suppose that e1 and x1 verify e[eat(e) & x[apple (x) & Agent (m, e) & ITH(x, e)]. • Now ask if for some arbitrary proper sub-event e2 of e1, the conditions are verified. The incremental theme x2 of e2 is found, and x2 counts as “apples”. So the sentence has the subinterval property and is an atelic sentence (activity).

  13. Incremental themes (part 6) • Suppose that e1 and x1 verify e[eat(e) & x[apples (x) & Agent (m, e) & ITH(x, e)]. • Now ask if for some arbitrary proper sub-event e2 of e1, the conditions are verified. The incremental theme x2 of e2 is found, but x2 does not counts as “(an) apple”. So the sentence fails to have the subinterval property and is a telic predicate (accomplishment).

  14. Some extra stuff • Some interesting questions raised by students

  15. Scope of quantifiers revisited • [An apple in every basket] is rotten. every basket > an apple (makes sense) an apple > every basket (makes no sense) 2. [An apple that is located in every basket] is rotten. every basket > an apple (makes sense, but this sentence does not have this reading --- scope island) But this constraint seems to be violated in (3). • [every apple that is located in a basket] is rotten. You seem to get both every apple > a basket and a basket > every apple. Solution: indefinites may be ambiguous independently of syntactic scope: referential vs. quantificational indefinites. Put simply, a basket in (3) is regarded as a “name” when it receives a “wide scope” reading.

  16. Determiners and Presuppositions We said that strong determiners (and perhaps all determiners) involve existential presuppositions. The restricted quantifier notation can easily indicate the existential presupposition. • ⟦x [CN(x)  VP(x)]⟧ is defined only if ⟦CN⟧ ≠ . This is a non-compositional rule that is ad hoc. • ⟦every x: CN(x)⟧ is defined only if ⟦CN⟧ ≠  This is perfectly legitimate.

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