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MAXIMIZING ASSERTION: THE CASE
OF VERBS OF MOTION IN RUSSIAN
Olga Kagan UCSC Fri, April 18, 3:30pm, MJH Rm 126 The purpose of this talk is to provide a formal semantic analysis for the determinate / indeterminate contrast exhibited by verbs of manner of motion in Russian. The paper focuses on imperfective verbs. Sentences with determinate verbs denote a single event of motion in a single direction, without entailing that the event reaches its natural endpoint. I provide an analysis of determinate aspect based on Dowty's (1979) intensional approach to the English progressive, adapting it in order to account for certain properties of determinate verbs. Sentences with indeterminate verbs can get an iterative or generic reading, or encode movement in multiple directions. It seems that they cannot be used to encode a single event of motion in one direction. These facts lead Forsyth to claim that indeterminate verbs lack a unified semantics. Alternatively, one could propose that the indeterminate aspect entails some kind of iterativity, which is revealed either as a repetition of events or as a series of movements in different directions. I argue, however, that indeterminate aspect is, in fact, compatible with the "single event of motion in a single direction" interpretation. I propose that indeterminate aspect should be analyzed as an identity function. A sentence with an indeterminate verb means that the event property specified by the predicate is instantiated, without further semantic restrictions. I further show that the usage of this aspect is restricted by an independently motivated pragmatic constraint. 
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