Transcript PowerPoint

CAS LX 502
13a. Events and conceptual structure
(at Brandeis and Buffalo)
9.5-9.7
Revisiting aspect and events
• Pat walked.
Process/Activity
• An activity of indefinite length.
• Pat walked to the store.
Event (accomplishment)
• Contains at least as much information as Pat walked, with the
additional information that the process had a logical culmination,
such that the activity is over when Pat is at the store.
• Pat walked for 30 minutes.
Bounded process
• Also contains information about the activity and its duration, but
without specific mention of a culmination of the activity.
Walking vs. building
• Walk, unadorned, takes on a process reading—it is
lexically “process-like.”
• Build, or destroy, unadorned, denote
accomplishment events; there is a logical
culmination.
• Pat built a house.
• Existence of the house is the culmination point.
• Pat destroyed the table.
• Non-existence of something we could call a table is the
culmination point.
Accomplishments in an hour
• Both lexical and derived accomplishments can be
modified by “frame adverbials” like in an hour.
• Pat walked to the store in an hour.
• Pat built a house in a year.
• The addition of durative adverbials like for an
hour can bring on a process reading.
• Pat walked for an hour.
• Pat build houses for three years.
• ?Pat walked to the store in an hour for 20 years.
Achievements at noon
• Accomplishments are activities that
culminate in a change of state.
• Achievements also culminate in a change of
state, but seem more “instantaneous.” The
change is not gradual, and point adverbials
like at noon can diagnose these.
• Pat found his wallet at 3pm.
• Pat arrived at noon.
States
• The last main event (or “eventuality”) type
is the state. A state makes no reference to a
beginning point or an endpoint. They are
happy with durative adverbials, and
unhappy in the imperative.
• Pat was sick for two months.
• *Be sick!
Almost there
• Adverbial modification, like with almost, has a different
effect depending on the type of predicate it applies to:
• Pat almost swam.
Process/Activity
• Pat did not begin swimming.
• Pat almost painted a picture. Accomplishment
• Pat did not quite begin painting, or he did not finish the picture.
• Pat almost arrived.
Achievement
• Pat did not arrive.
• Pat almost left.
• Pat did not begin leaving or Pat did not complete the leaving.
• Why?
Basic event types
• Pustejovsky (e.g., 1991), proposes to
describe event(ualities) in terms of basic
event types and their combinations. The
basic types are:
• S: State
• P: Process
• T: Transition
Event structures
• States are evaluated with respect to
no other events.
• Processes are sequences of events
identifying the same semantic
expression.
• Transitions are events identifying a
semantic expression which is
evaluated relative to its opposition.
S
e
P
e1 …
en
T
E1
E2
Closing the door
S
e
• The door is closed.
• A state in which the door is
closed.
LCS: [closed(the-door)]
• The door closed.
• Transition from a process
in which the door is not
closed, culminating in a
state where the door is
closed.
[closed(the-door)]
T
P
e1 …
S
en
e
[closed(the-door)]
[closed(the-door)]
LCS: BECOME([closed(the-door)])
Closing the door
• Pat closed the door.
• Transition from a
process in which
the door is not
closed and in which
the door is being
acted upon by Pat,
culminating in a
state where the door
is closed.
T
P
e1 …
S
en
e
[closed(the-door)]
[act(Pat, the-door)  closed(the-door)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(Pat, the-door)],
BECOME([closed(the-door)]) )
Accomplishments vs.
Achievements
• According to Pustejovsky, the difference between
achievements and accomplishments lies in
whether the verb makes explicit reference to the
activity being performed (that is, when there is an
actor acting upon an object):
T
P
[Q(y)]
T
S
[Q(y)]
LCS: BECOME([Q(y)])
P
[act(x, y)  Q(y)]
S
[Q(y)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(x, y)],
BECOME([Q(y)]) )
Accomplishments vs.
Achievements
• Pat arrived.
• Pat built a house.
(achievement)
(accomplishment)
T
P
T
S
P
S
[at(Pat, HERE)] [at(Pat, HERE)] [act(Pat, y)  house(y)] [house(y)]
LCS: BECOME([at(Pat, HERE)])
LCS: CAUSE([act(Pat, y)],
BECOME([house(y)]) )
Adverbial modification
• Certain adverbs ascribe intentionality:
intentionally, deliberately.
• Only accomplishments allow this kind of
adverbial modification—those where there is an
actor acting on an object.
•
•
•
•
*Pat intentionally arrived.
Pat intentionally built a house.
*Pat intentionally found a quarter.
Pat intentionally walked to the store.
Adverbial modification
• Pat rudely departed.
• It was rude of Pat to depart.
• Pat departed in a particularly rude manner.
T
P
S
[act(x)  departed(x)] [departed(x)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(x)],
BECOME([departed(x)]) )
Adverbial modification
• Pat rudely departed.
• It was rude of Pat to depart.
• Pat departed in a particularly rude manner.
• The process was rude.
T
P[rude(P)] S
[act(Pat)  departed(Pat)] [departed(Pat)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(Pat)],
BECOME([departed(Pat)]) )
Adverbial modification
• Pat rudely departed.
• It was rude of Pat to depart.
• Pat departed in a particularly rude manner.
• The process was rude.
T[rude(T)]
• Or
• The departing was rude.
P
S
[act(Pat)  departed(Pat)] [departed(Pat)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(Pat)],
BECOME([departed(Pat)]) )
Adverbial modification
• Pat almost built a house.
• Pat was on the verge of starting to build a house.
• Pat was on the verge of completing a house.
• It was almost a house.
• Or
T
• The process almost
P
S[almost(S)]
happened
(intentional).
[act(Pat, y)  house(y)] [house(y)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(Pat, y)],
BECOME([house(y)]) )
Adverbial modification
• Pat almost built a house.
• Pat was on the verge of starting to build a house.
• Pat was on the verge of completing a house.
• It was almost a house.
• Or
T
• The process almost
P[almost(P)] S
happened
(intentional).
[act(Pat, y)  house(y)] [house(y)]
LCS: CAUSE([act(Pat, y)],
BECOME([house(y)]) )
Adverbial modification
• Pat almost arrived.
• Pat was on the verge of being here.
• *Pat was on the verge of starting to be here.
• The end state was almost
achieved.
T
Pustejovsky proposes that this arises
P
S[almost(S)]
from the fact that there is only one
predicate here (at—and its opposition).
Accomplishments allow modification of [at(Pat, HERE)] [at(Pat, HERE)]
either subevent because the act predicate
LCS: BECOME([at(Pat, HERE)]) )
is distinct.
Adverbial modification
• Pat ran for 20 minutes.
• The duration of the running was 20 minutes.
P[20m(P)]
e1 …
en
[run(Pat)]
LCS: [run(Pat)]
Adverbial modification
• Pat ran to the store for 20 minutes.
• *The duration of the running was 20 minutes.
• The being at the store lasted 20 minutes
Temporal adverbials seem to prefer to be
associated with the end state in complex
events, even though they can be associated
with processes in principle.
Blockbuster rented Pat the video for 3 days
Pat left for a week.
Pat arrived for the day.
T
P
e1 …
S[20m(S)]
en [at(Pat, the-store)]
[run(Pat)]
LCS: BECOME([at(Pat, the-store)]) )
Pustejovsky summary
• Events have internal structure, and we can
gain insight into the typology of events and
the options for adverbial modification by
recognizing them as such (that is, as basic
event(ualities) of processes, states, or
transitions from one to another).
Jackendoff’s
conceptual semantics
• Ray Jackendoff has been a major figure in the
decomposition of semantics to structures formed from
primitives.
• Idea:
•
•
•
•
X lifted Y
X gave Z to Y
X persuaded Y that P
X killed Y
entails
entails
entails
entails
Y rose
Y received Z
Y came to believe P
Y died
• All can be described as
• X causes E to occur
entails E occurs
• Thus: CAUSE is a primitive (and isolable) part of the
semantics of the verbs on the left.
Conceptual semantics
• Bill went into the house.
• [EVENT GO ( [THING Bill], [PATH TO (
[PLACE IN ( [THING HOUSE] ) ] ) ]
)])]
• Brackets identify “conceptual constituents” which
can belong one one of a small number of major
conceptual categories (“semantic part of speech”):
Thing, Event, State, Path, Place, Property, Time,
Amount.
Bill went into the house
• This is just a tree
representation of the
same information we GO
had on the previous
slide.
• Bill traverses a path
that terminates in the
interior of the house.
EVENT
THING
BILL
PATH
TO
PLACE
IN
THING
HOUSE
Lexical entries
• Jackendoff proposes the following form for lexical
entries (tying together phonological form, syntactic
form, and semantic/conceptual structure):
into
P
[PATH TO([PLACE IN([THING ]A)])]
go
V
[EVENT GO([THING ]A, [PATH ]A)]
Empty brackets with a
type and a subscript A
take an argument—
that is, a THING type
thing fits in into, and a
THING and a PATH
type thing is needed
for go.
Lexical entries
• Jackendoff proposes the following form for lexical
entries (tying together phonological form, syntactic
form, and semantic/conceptual structure):
enter
V
[EVENT GO([THING ]A, [PATH TO([PLACE IN([THING ]A)])]
Enter is basically go +
into.
The light flashed until dawn
• The light flashed until dawn.
• This conveys a “repetitive” meaning, yet…
• The light flashed.
• …suggests only a single flash. And until
dawn isn’t giving us the repetitive meaning,
since…
• Bill slept until dawn.
• …does not express repeated acts of
sleeping.
The light flashed until dawn
• Jackendoff proposes to view this as follows:
• Until dawn bounds an unbounded event.
• Bill slept (until dawn).
• The light flashed is a bounded event.
• You can’t bound an already bounded event, so you
first need to convert it to an unbounded event, and
then bound it.
• One way to “unbound” a bounded event is to
“pluralize” (iterate) it.
Events and entities
• Jackendoff proposes (following a tradition,
going back to at least Bach 1986) to treat
events as a kind of entity.
• Nouns can be count or mass, plural or singular.
• Events can be bounded or unbounded, iterative
or not.
• Internal structure [+i] or not [-i]
• Bounded [+b] or not [-b]
Plurals and iteration
•
•
•
•
•
•
A count noun like dog is [+b, -i].
When pluralized, dogs is [-b, +i].
A group noun like committee is [+b, +i].
But pluralized, committees is [-b, +i].
A mass noun like corn is [-b, +i].
And you can’t pluralize it. Nor can you repluralize a plural noun (*dogses, corns).
• So, the effect of the plural morpheme is to change
a [+b] noun into a [-b, +i] noun.
Plurals and iteration
N+plural =
MAT =
“material
entity”
-b, +i
PL([MAT +b ]A )
MAT
people =
-b, +i
PL(
MAT
MAT
+b, -i
PERSON
)
Plurals and iteration
V+plural =
-b, +i
PL([EVENT +b ]A )
EVENT
The light
flashed(iter.) =
-b, +i
PL(
EVENT
+b, -i
LIGHT FLASHED
EVENT
)
Bounding until dawn
• Until dawn imposes a boundary on an unbounded
event, rather like iteration “removes” the boundary
from a bounded event:
X until Y =
+b
COMP([EVENT -b X])
BOUNDED-BY([TIME Y])
EVENT
COMP(X) means “composed of”—in the nominal domain, this
would correspond to wood in house of wood (and of would be the
morphological exponent of COMP).
&c
• Jackendoff fleshes out his system with
several further functions, to handle
measurement (a grain of sand, sleep until
noon converting unbounded entities into
bounded ones), “grinding” (there is chair
all over the room, Pat is running to the
store, converting bounded entities into
unbounded ones), etc. We can see where
this is going, though.
have = BE + PHAVE
• You may recognize this project—it’s the
same basic idea that we covered back in
week 3, when we considered the idea that
have is BE + PHAVE, give is CAUSE + BE +
PHAVE, etc.
• The basic motto is: things are more complex
than they appear on the surface.
Conflation patterns
• Talmy (1985) observed that Romance and English
“conflate” different things within lexical items.
• Verbs of motion can be considered to consist of a
fact of motion, a theme, a path, and a manner.
• Pat sauntered into the house.
• Tracy ran from the tiger.
• In English, manner is often part of the verb.
Conflation patterns
• In Romance languages, manner is expressed separately,
not incorporated into the verb—but the directional part of
the path is incorporated into the verb.
• Salió de la casa corriendo.
(Spanish)
Left from the house running
(gloss)
‘He ran out of the house.’
(English)
• Subió las ecaleras corriendo.
Went-up the stairs running
‘He ran up the stairs.’
• La botella entró a la cueva (flotando).
The bottle moved-in to the cave (floating)
‘The bottle floated into the cave.’
Atsugewi
• Talmy cites Atsugewi (California) as a language
that conflates (the classificational part of) the
theme with the verb:
• Verb roots: (conflating fact of motion with theme)
-lup- (small shiny spherical object moves)
-t’- (small planar object that can be affixed moves)
-caq- (slimy lumpish object moves)
-swal- (limp linear object suspended by one end moves)
-qput- (loose dry dirt moves)
-st’aq’- (runny icky material moves)
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