Verbs and situation types continued - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Verbs and situation types continued

LIN1180 Semantics

Lecture 11Slide2

Classifying verbs: lexical semantic distinctions

Part 1Slide3

Dynamic vs. Static

Compare:

John is a lazy guy.

S

tephanie

is a beautiful woman.

(1) and (2) describe “situations” or “states of affairs” which are

stable or unchanging

Steve is driving across Europe.

I ate a pizza last night.

(3) and (4) describe “situations” or “states of affairs” which are

dynamic, changing over timeSlide4

Dynamic vs. static

The distinction affects lexical choice.

Often, static situations are described using adjectives:

Static:

the pears are

ripe

(adjective)

Dynamic:

the pears

ripened

(verb)

But not always:

John

is

a lazy guy.

Adjectives

tend to be

inherently stative

Verbs

differ in whether they are

stative or dynamic

.Slide5

Stative verbs

Allow the speaker to view a situation as steady and relatively unchanging.

no reference to an explicit endpoint

no reference to change

Compare:

Mary knows Greek. (stative)

Mary learned Greek. (dynamic)Slide6

Stative verbs

?Mary is knowing Greek.

progressive has connotations of dynamism and change

clashes with the inherent semantics of the stative verb

Mary is learning Greek.

progressive is fine with a dynamic verbSlide7

Stative verbs

?Know Greek!

imperative usually odd with statives

Learn Greek!

imperative is fine with dynamic verbs

Exceptions:

remain

seems to be inherently stative

allows imperative:

Remain seated!

Maltese equivalent of

know

(

jaf

):

Kun af li lbieraħ morna.

(

Know that we went yesterday

)

but: ?

Kun af il-Greek

(

Know Greek!

)

Maybe a special usage?Slide8

Dynamic verb types

Further classified into sub-types:

durative

vs.

punctual

whether situation described by verb lasts for a period of time or not

John winked

. (punctual)

John slept.

(durative)

telic/resultative

vs.

atelic

whether verb describes a situation with a natural end-point

I built a house

(telic)

I looked out over the mountains

(atelic)Slide9

Semelfactive punctual verbs

inherently punctual

tend to describe situations which are very brief

e.g.

wink, blink, flash, shoot, knock, sneeze, cough

Combination with durative adverbials like

all night

, results in clash between lexical aspect (non-durative) and the modifier (durative)

The light

flashed

for an hour

I

knocked

for 5 minutes

Clash results in an

iterative

interpretationSlide10

More on durative verbs

Resultative

durative

verbs

describe situations with a

natural end-point

She baked a meat pie.

Process + end-point

During the process, the meat pie doesn’t exist

Meat pie is the result of the process.

Inchoative verbs

describe situations which give rise to

a new state

The leaves turned brown.

Process giving rise to new state

At the start of the process, the leaves aren’t brown

the state of

being brown

is the outcomeSlide11

More on the telic/atelic distinction

Though a verb can be inherently telic/atelic, the overall aspect of a sentence can change depending on grammatical environment:

Atelic:

Jane was singing.

no specific endpoint

Telic:

Jane was singing

a song

.

direct object gives rise to a telic reading

singing a song

has a natural endpointSlide12

More on the telic/atelic distinction

Telic/atelic also interacts with grammatical aspect

Telic:

Lucien Freud painted

my portrait

.

implies completion: my portrait was finished

Atelic:

Lucien Freud was painting

my portrait.

no implication of completion: no information about whether the portrait was finishedSlide13

More on the telic/atelic distinction

In some languages, there is a derivational process to turn

a

telic

to telic ones

.

German:

essen

(eat)



aufessen

(eat up/finish eating)

aufessen

implies completionSlide14

The verb classification so farSlide15

Classifying situation types

Part

2Slide16

Some assumptions

Our task:

describe types of verbs based on lexical aspect

correlate these to types of situations

We will assume a basic distinction between

static

and

dynamic

situations

static: tends to be described by stative verbs

dynamic: tends to be described by dynamic verbsSlide17

Dynamic situations

Punctual/durative verb distinction correlates with the kind of situation we’re talking about.

event:

speaker views the entire situation

the mine blew up

blow up

is a

punctual verb

process:

speaker considers the internal change in the situation

she walked into the theatre

walk

is a

durative verbSlide18

Vendler’s classification

Vendler (1957):

proposed a classification of situation types

main aim was to describe real situations and correlate them with different verb types in language

main distinctions:

states

activities

accomplishments

achievements

processes and eventsSlide19

Vendler’s states

Roughly, the kinds of situations that can be

described by stative verbs

know, believe

etc

typically, verbs describing these states don’t allow the progressive aspect in most contexts

?

I am believing the news

I believe the newsSlide20

Activities vs. Accomplishments

Both are kinds of processes

e.g. they are described by dynamic verbs

the verbs allow the progressive aspect

Main difference is one of

boundedness

roughly corresponds to the semantic telic/atelic distinction

Activities:

I am pushing a cart.

The act of pushing a cart doesn’t imply any necessary endpoint.

Accomplishment:

I am drawing a circle.

Act of drawing a circle does imply an endpoint (when the circle is done)Slide21

The activity/accomplishment distinction

John was pushing a cart.

Test 1:

Q: For how long did John push the cart?

perfectly legitimate question, focuses on the time the activity took

Q: How long did it take to push the cart?

strange question, focuses on the end-point of the activity, which is not implied by the sentence

NB: question becomes OK if our sentence is

John was pushing a cart to the village.

The direct object makes it an accomplishment.

Test 2:

If John stopped pushing the cart after some time, can we say that the sentence is still true?

Yes.Slide22

The activity/accomplishment distinction

John was running a mile.

Test 1:

Q: For how long did John run a mile?

strange question, focuses on the time the activity took

Q: How long did it take to run a mile?

legitimate question, focuses on the end-point of the activity, which is implied by the sentence

Test 2:

If John stopped running a mile after some time, can we say that the sentence is still true?

No. The sentence is only true if John finished running a mile.Slide23

The activity/accomplishment distinction

One of the ways this is reflected in language has to do with

durative adverbials

sentences describing activities can have a durative adverbial

John pushed the cart

for an hour

sentences describing accomplishments are often odd with a durative

?

John ran a mile

for an hourSlide24

Correlation with the semantic distinction

Activities: durative, atelic

push a cart

Accomplishment: durative, telic

run a mile

Interaction with grammatical context:

John pushed a cart. (activity, atelic)

John pushed a cart

to the village.

(accomplishment, telic)Slide25

Achievements

Vendler’s achievements are not processes but events

typically described by non-durative, telic verbs

recognise, find, stop

Compare:

I recognised Bill.

?I recognised Bill

for an hour

.

durative adverbial gives rise to an odd sentence

just like accomplishments

different in that the situation described is understood to take place instantaneouslySlide26

Summary of situation typesSlide27

Summary

Different types of situations are encoded differently, depending on:

whether they are conceived as holistic events or processes with internal structure

whether they are long-term states

whether they are know to have endpoints

Different verbs are suited to different types of situations depending on:

telicity

durativitity

stativity