Abstract
One of the longstanding problems in linguistic analysis is to identify, describe, and analyze the lexical aspect classes allowed in natural language. Recent developments on this issue have raised two interrelated questions: how many event classes there are and how they are derived from a minimum of primitives. In this article, we identify a class of predicates denoting the maintenance of a situation through which 13 tests can be shown to display mixed properties between states and activities, challenging the existing taxonomies of aspectual classes. We furthermore argue that the existence of this class is expected by any theory that treats aspectual classes as epiphenomena of the combination of a restricted set of primitives, and propose an analysis where they contain a central coincidence preposition selected by an eventive layer.
Funding statement: The research underlying this paper has been supported by projects PICS “Deverbative” (6422, Fábregas and Marín), “Connecting Conceptual and Referential Models of Meaning” (MINECO, FFI2013-41301-P, Marín) and “Variation at the syntax-discourse interface” (MINECO, FFI2014-56968-C4-2-P, Fábregas).
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria, Brenda Laca, Ángel Gallego, Alfredo García Pardo, Christopher Piñón and three anonymous reviewers for constructive critical comments to previous drafts of this paper. All disclaimers apply.
References
Acquaviva, Paolo. 2009. Roots, categories, and nominal concepts. Lingue e Linguaggio 8(1). 25–51.Search in Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis & Florian Schäfer. 2006. Instrument subjects are agents or causers. In D. Baumer Donald Baumer, David Montero, and Michael Scanlon (eds.), Proceedings of the 25th WCCFL, 40–48. Somerville: Cascadilla.Search in Google Scholar
Arad, Maya. 2002. Universal features and language-particular morphemes. In Artemis Alexiadou (ed.), Theoretical approaches to universals, 15–40. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.49.03araSearch in Google Scholar
Arad, Maya. 2003. Locality Constraints on the Interpretation of Roots: The case of Hebrew denominal Verbs. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21(4). 737–778.10.1023/A:1025533719905Search in Google Scholar
Ascher, Nicholas & James Pustejovsky. 2006. A type composition logic for generative lexicon. Journal of Cognitive Science 6. 1–38.10.1007/978-94-007-5189-7_3Search in Google Scholar
Bach, Emmon. 1986. The algebra of events. Linguistics and Philosophy 9. 5–16.10.1002/9780470758335.ch13Search in Google Scholar
Bennett, Michael & Barbara Partee. 1972. Toward the logic of tense and aspect in English. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Search in Google Scholar
Berro, Ane. 2015. Breaking verbs: from event structure to syntactic categories in Basque. Vitoria-Gasteiz: University of Basque Country dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Borer, Hagit. 2005. The normal course of events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Borer, Hagit. 2012. In the event of a nominal. In Martin Everaert, Marijana Marelj & Tal Siloni (eds.), The theta system, 103–150. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Carlson, Gregory. 1977. Reference to kinds in English. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Cleland, Carol. 1991. On the individuation of events. Synthese 86. 229–254.10.1007/BF00485810Search in Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1967. The logical form of action sentences. In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), The logic of decision and action, 81–94. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh.Search in Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 2010. On the functional structure of locative and directional PPs. In Guglielmo Cinque & Luigi Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 6 6, 74–126. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393675.003.0003Search in Google Scholar
Dowty, David. 1979. Word meaning and Montague grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.10.1007/978-94-009-9473-7Search in Google Scholar
Dowty, David. 1989. On the semantic content of the notion of ‘thematic role’. In Gennaro Chierchia, Barbara H. Partee & Raymond Turner (eds.), Properties, types and meaning II, 69–129. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-009-2723-0_3Search in Google Scholar
Fábregas, Antonio & Rafael Marín. 2012. State nouns are Kimian states. In Irene Franco, Sara Lusini & Andrés Saab (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic Theory: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’, 41–64. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/rllt.4.03fabSearch in Google Scholar
Fabricius-Hansen, Cathrine. 1975. Transformative, intransformative und kursive Verben (Linguistische Arbeiten 26). Berlin & New York: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783111657875Search in Google Scholar
Folli, Raffaella & Heidi Harley. 2008. Teleology and animacy in external arguments. Lingua 118(2). 190–202.10.1016/j.lingua.2007.02.004Search in Google Scholar
García Pardo, Alfredo. 2015. The aspectual structure of the VP: A case study in adjectival passives. Unpublished ms., University of Southern California.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Ken. 1986. Notes on world view and semantic categories: Some Warlpiri examples. In Pieter Muysken & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), Features and projections, 233–254. Dordrecht: Foris.10.1515/9783110871661-009Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Ken & Samuel J. Keyser. 2002. Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/5634.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Elisabeth Ritter. 2002. Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis. Language 78. 482–526.10.1353/lan.2002.0158Search in Google Scholar
Husband, Matthew. 2012. On the compositional nature of states. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.188Search in Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1983. Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kay, Paul & Laura Michaelis. 2012. Constructional meaning and compositionality. In Claudia Maienborn Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger and Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, 2271–2296. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. 1969. Events and their descriptions: Some considerations. In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), Essays in honor of Carl G. Hempel, 198–215. Dordrecht: Reidel.10.1007/978-94-017-1466-2_10Search in Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 2000. Building statives. Berkeley Linguistic Society 26. 385–399.10.3765/bls.v26i1.1131Search in Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1990. Concept, image and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport. 2005. Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511610479Search in Google Scholar
Lombard, Lawrence Brian. 1979. Events. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 9. 177–212.10.1080/00455091.1979.10716261Search in Google Scholar
MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2008. The syntactic nature of inner aspect: A minimalist perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.133Search in Google Scholar
Maienborn, Claudia. 2003. Die logische Form von Kopula-Sätzen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.10.1524/9783050082271Search in Google Scholar
Maienborn, Claudia. 2005. On the limits of the Davidsonian approach: The case of copula sentences. Theoretical Linguistics 31(3). 275–316.10.1515/thli.2005.31.3.275Search in Google Scholar
Maienborn, Claudia. 2008. On Davidsonian and Kimian states. In Ileana Comorowsky & Klaus von Heusinger (eds.), Existence: Semantics and syntax, 107–130. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-1-4020-6197-4_4Search in Google Scholar
Marín, Rafael. 2000. El componente aspectual de la predicación. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Marín, Rafael. 2004. Entre ser y estar. Madrid: Arco Libros.Search in Google Scholar
Mateu, Jaume. 2002. Argument structure: Relational construal at the syntax-semantics interface. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Mellor, David. 1981. Real time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura. 2004. Type shifting in Construction Grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics 15. 1–67.10.1515/cogl.2004.001Search in Google Scholar
Moens, Marc. 1987. Tense, aspect and temporal reference. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Mourelatos, Alexander P. D. 1978. Events, processes and states. Linguistics and Philosophy 2. 415–434.10.1007/BF00149015Search in Google Scholar
Paulsen, Geda. 2012. Static and dynamic states: The case of Estonian stative colour expressions. ESUKA-JEFUL 3(1). 9–46.10.12697/jeful.2012.3.1.01Search in Google Scholar
Phipps, Christopher. 2005. The polysemy of ‘from’ within the barrier verb construction. Proceedings from the Second ACL-SIGSEM Workshop on the Linguistic Dimensions of Prepositions and their use in computational linguistics, 1–8. University of Essex.Search in Google Scholar
Phipps, Christopher. 2013. Barrier verbs as negative verbs. http://thelousylinguist.blogspot.no/2013/08/barrier-verbs-as-negative-verbs.html (accessed 21 January 2017)Search in Google Scholar
Piñón, Christopher. 1997. Achievements in an event semantics. In Aaron Lawson & Eun Cho (eds.), Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 7, 273–296. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.10.3765/salt.v7i0.2781Search in Google Scholar
Ramchand, Gillian. 2008. Verb meaning and the lexicon: A first-phase syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486319Search in Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7Search in Google Scholar
Ross, John R. 1973. Nouniness. In Osamu Fujimura (ed.), Three dimensions of linguistic research, 137–257. Tokyo: Institute for Advanced Study of Language.Search in Google Scholar
Rothmayr, Antonia. 2009. The structure of stative verbs. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.143Search in Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan. 2004. Structuring events. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470759127Search in Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 2010. Spatial P in English. In Guglielmo Cinque & Luigi Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 6, 127–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393675.003.0004Search in Google Scholar
Tenny, Carol. 1992. The aspectual interface hypothesis. In Ivan Sag & Anna Szabolcsi (eds.), Lexical matters (CSLI Lecture Notes 24), 1–28. Stanford, CA: CSLISearch in Google Scholar
Tomioka, Tatsuaki. 1994. State of affairs dynamics in prose fiction. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1957. Verbs and times. The Philosophical Review 66. 143–160.10.7591/9781501743726-005Search in Google Scholar
Verkuyl, Henk. 1993. A theory of aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511597848Search in Google Scholar
Wunderlich, Dieter. 1991. How do prepositional phrases fit into compositional syntax and semantics? Linguistics 29. 591–621.10.1515/ling.1991.29.4.591Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
