Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today) PDF
Preview Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today)
Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective. General Editors Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen University of Vienna / Rijksuniversiteit Arizona State University Groningen Advisory Editorial Board Cedric Boeckx Christer Platzack Harvard University University of Lund Guglielmo Cinque Ian Roberts University of Venice Cambridge University Günther Grewendorf Lisa deMena Travis J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt McGill University Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner University of Lille, France University of Aarhus Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart University of Salzburg University of Groningen Volume 110 Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect Edited by Susan Rothstein Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect Edited by Susan Rothstein Bar-Ilan University John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of 8 American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Theoretical and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect / edited by Susan Rothstein. p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 110) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Aspect. 2. Semantics. 3. Typology (Linguistics) I. Rothstein, Susan Deborah. P281.T44 2007 415'.63--dc22 2007031205 isbn 978 90 272 3374 5 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa This book is dedicated to the memory of Keiko Yoshida 27 December 1961–20 January 2007 Table of contents Introduction 1 Susan Rothstein part i. Tense, aspect and Vendler classes 1. Lexicalized meaning and the internal temporal structure of events 13 Malka Rappaport Hovav 2. Telicity, atomicity and the Vendler classification of verbs 43 Susan Rothstein 3. Aspects of a typology of direction 79 Joost Zwarts 4. 1066: On the differences between the tense-perspective-aspect systems of English and Dutch 107 Fred Landman 5. Tenses for the living and the dead: Lifetime inferences reconsidered 167 Anita Mittwoch part ii. Issues in Slavic aspect 6. Formal and informal semantics of telicity 191 Еlena Paducheva and Мati Pentus 7. Events and maximalization: The case of telicity and perfectivity 217 Hana Filip 8. Aspect and bounded quantity complements in Russian 257 Hans Robert Mehlig 9. Negation, intensionality, and aspect: Interaction with NP semantics 291 Barbara H. Partee iii Theoretical and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect part iii. Aspect in non-Indoeuropean languages 10. Habituality and the habitual aspect 321 Nora Boneh and Edit Doron 11. Aspectual universals of temporal anaphora 349 Maria Bittner 12. The syntax and semantics of change/transition: Evidence from Mandarin Chinese 387 Hooi Ling Soh 13. Bare nouns and telicity in Japanese 421 Keiko Yoshida Index 441 introduction Theoretical and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect Susan Rothstein Bar-Ilan University 1. Theoretical issues The papers in this volume deal with a variety of issues in the semantics of aspect, and have in common that they are all based on talks presented at a workshop on the seman- tics of aspect which was held at Bar-Ilan University in June of 2005. Before presenting these papers one by one, I would like to set out what seem to me to be the central theoretical issues in research in aspect which provide a context for understanding the relevance of the papers. Aspect traditionally concerns itself with what Comrie 1976 calls ‘different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation’ (pages 3,5). While tense locates an event at a particular temporal location, aspect is concerned with the structural properties, or contours, of the event under discussion, independent of its location in time.1 Traditionally, semantic accounts of aspect have focussed on two different issues, lexical aspect and grammatical aspect (see the discussion in Smith 1991). Lexical aspect concerns those properties of event structure which are determined by what are traditionally called ‘content words’, the meanings of verbs themselves and the modifiers which modify these verbs, and as such lexical aspect usually (in English type languages at least) has focussed on structural properties of events expressed by VP internal mate- rial. Grammatical aspect focuses on operations on event structure introduced by (in English) VP external material, often functional elements such as inflections, auxiliary verbs and possibly zero-inflectional elements. I have singled out here four issues which underlie much research in aspect, including the papers in this volume. 1. I model interpretations in a neo-Davidsonian framework, which assumes that verbs denote sets of events and thematic roles introduce functions from events to their participants. Much work over the last 20 years has been devoted to arguing that the neo-Davidsonian framework provides the most illuminating account of verb meanings and their interaction with aspect, plurality, quantification, and so on. See e.g., Higginbotham, 1983, 1985, 1986, Parsons 1990, Landman 1992, 2000, Rothstein 1995, 2004. Note that some notable semanticists, in particular David Dowty, have consistently argued that the arguments presented are not strong enough to warrant postulating a Davidsonian or neo-Davidsonian event argument.
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