Transcript Lecture19
Lecture 19
Ling 442
Exercises
1. Provide logical forms for the following:
(a) Everything John does is crazy.
(b) Most of what happened to Marcia is funny.
2. Do you find the following ambiguous? If so,
say what readings are available for each.
(a) Jones almost ran to the store.
(b) Jones almost killed Bill.
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)]
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.
1. John left.
2. Past e[Leave (e) & Agent (j, e)]
3. Every student left. (4) or (5)
4. Past [every x: student (x)] e [Leave (e) & Agent (x, e)]
5. Past e [[every x: student (x)] [Leave (e) & Agent (x, e)]]
6. [every x: student (x)] Past e [ [Leave (e) & Agent (x, e)]]
Events and perception verbs
(36) Jones saw Lina shake the bottle.
ee[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.
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)
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]
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.
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”
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⟧
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.
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 subevent 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).
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 subevent 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).
Some extra stuff
• Some interesting questions raised by students
Scope of quantifiers revisited
1. [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).
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.
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.
1. ⟦x [CN(x) VP(x)]⟧ is defined only if ⟦CN⟧ ≠ . This is a
non-compositional rule that is ad hoc.
2. ⟦every x: CN(x)⟧ is defined only if ⟦CN⟧ ≠
This is perfectly legitimate.