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Linguistics
Department
Stanford
University |
Stanford
Humanities Center
Mellon
Foundation
Graduate
Research Workshop Program
Stanford
Semantics and Pragmatics Workshop:
THE
CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING
Friday, January 30, 3:30pm in 460-126:
Aspectual and causal structure in event
representations
Bill Croft (University of Manchester and CASBS)
Abstract:
Aspect - "the temporal structure of an event" (Comrie 1976:3) - and the causal or
force-dynamic structure of an event (Talmy 1976, 1988, 2000) - play a major role in
motivating the grammar of verbs. In earlier work (Croft 1991, 1998), I argued that the
argument structure(s) of verbs are motivated largely by the force-dynamic structure of
events. However, the geometric representation used in that work conflated a simplistic
analysis of aspect with the force-dynamic relations that were the focus of that work. In
work in progress, I offer a geometric representation that clearly separates the aspectual
and causal dimensions and offers a more sophisticated analysis of aspect. I focus here on
aspect, which is represented in two dimensions (time and qualitative change, based on
never-published work begun with Jerry Hobbs in the late 1980s). A detailed classification
of event types is offered, and alternative construals of specific verbs (event classes)
are illustrated. The data is extremely complex, and multidimensional scaling is used to
map out verb meanings in an aspectual conceptual space. A two-dimensional scaling analysis
indicates that the most important semantic dimensions in determining aspectual grammatical
behavior are (1) abrupt change of state vs. undirected process and (2) incremental vs.
nonincremental change. I conclude by presenting the addition of the force-dynamic
dimension onto the aspectual dimensions in the verbal event representation.
Please contact one of the workshop organizers
if you have suggestions for presentations or the workshop in general.
Back to the workshop homepage.
This workshop is sponsored by
the Stanford Humanities Center, and funded by a grant from the Mellon
Foundation.
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