Verbs and situation types continued LIN1180 Semantics Lecture 11.

LIN1180 Semantics Lecture 11

Verbs and situation types continuedLIN1180 SemanticsLecture 11Classifying verbs: lexical semantic distinctionsPart 1Dynamic vs. StaticCompare:John is a lazy guy.Stephanie 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 timeDynamic vs. staticThe 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 stativeVerbs differ in whether they are stative or dynamic.Stative verbsAllow the speaker to view a situation as steady and relatively unchanging.no reference to an explicit endpointno reference to changeCompare:Mary knows Greek. (stative)Mary learned Greek. (dynamic)

Stative verbs?Mary is knowing Greek.progressive has connotations of dynamism and changeclashes with the inherent semantics of the stative verb

Mary is learning Greek.progressive is fine with a dynamic verbStative verbs?Know Greek!imperative usually odd with stativesLearn Greek!imperative is fine with dynamic verbsExceptions:remain seems to be inherently stativeallows imperative: Remain seated!Maltese equivalent of know (jaf):Kun af li lbiera morna. (Know that we went yesterday)but: ?Kun af il-Greek (Know Greek!)Maybe a special usage?Dynamic verb typesFurther classified into sub-types:durative vs. punctualwhether situation described by verb lasts for a period of time or notJohn winked. (punctual)John slept. (durative)telic/resultative vs. atelicwhether verb describes a situation with a natural end-pointI built a house (telic)I looked out over the mountains (atelic)Semelfactive punctual verbsinherently punctualtend to describe situations which are very briefe.g. wink, blink, flash, shoot, knock, sneeze, coughCombination with durative adverbials like all night, results in clash between lexical aspect (non-durative) and the modifier (durative)The light flashed for an hourI knocked for 5 minutesClash results in an iterative interpretationMore on durative verbsResultative durative verbs describe situations with a natural end-pointShe baked a meat pie.Process + end-pointDuring the process, the meat pie doesnt existMeat pie is the result of the process.

Inchoative verbs describe situations which give rise to a new stateThe leaves turned brown.Process giving rise to new stateAt the start of the process, the leaves arent brownthe state of being brown is the outcomeMore on the telic/atelic distinctionThough 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 endpointTelic: Jane was singing a song.direct object gives rise to a telic readingsinging a song has a natural endpointMore on the telic/atelic distinctionTelic/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 finishedMore on the telic/atelic distinctionIn some languages, there is a derivational process to turn atelic to telic ones.German:essen (eat) aufessen (eat up/finish eating)aufessen implies completion

The verb classification so farClassifying situation typesPart 2Some assumptionsOur task:describe types of verbs based on lexical aspectcorrelate these to types of situations

We will assume a basic distinction between static and dynamic situationsstatic: tends to be described by stative verbsdynamic: tends to be described by dynamic verbsDynamic situationsPunctual/durative verb distinction correlates with the kind of situation were talking about.event: speaker views the entire situation the mine blew upblow up is a punctual verbprocess: speaker considers the internal change in the situationshe walked into the theatrewalk is a durative verbVendlers classificationVendler (1957):proposed a classification of situation typesmain aim was to describe real situations and correlate them with different verb types in languagemain distinctions:statesactivitiesaccomplishmentsachievements

processes and eventsVendlers statesRoughly, the kinds of situations that can be described by stative verbsknow, believe etctypically, verbs describing these states dont allow the progressive aspect in most contexts?I am believing the newsI believe the newsActivities vs. AccomplishmentsBoth are kinds of processese.g. they are described by dynamic verbsthe verbs allow the progressive aspectMain difference is one of boundednessroughly corresponds to the semantic telic/atelic distinctionActivities:I am pushing a cart.The act of pushing a cart doesnt imply any necessary endpoint.Accomplishment:I am drawing a circle.Act of drawing a circle does imply an endpoint (when the circle is done)The activity/accomplishment distinctionJohn was pushing a cart.Test 1:Q: For how long did John push the cart?perfectly legitimate question, focuses on the time the activity tookQ: 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 sentenceNB: 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.The activity/accomplishment distinctionJohn was running a mile.Test 1:Q: For how long did John run a mile?strange question, focuses on the time the activity tookQ: How long did it take to run a mile?legitimate question, focuses on the end-point of the activity, which is implied by the sentenceTest 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.The activity/accomplishment distinctionOne of the ways this is reflected in language has to do with durative adverbialssentences describing activities can have a durative adverbialJohn pushed the cart for an hoursentences describing accomplishments are often odd with a durative?John ran a mile for an hourCorrelation with the semantic distinctionActivities: durative, atelicpush a cartAccomplishment: durative, telicrun a mileInteraction with grammatical context:John pushed a cart. (activity, atelic)John pushed a cart to the village. (accomplishment, telic)AchievementsVendlers achievements are not processes but eventstypically described by non-durative, telic verbsrecognise, find, stopCompare:I recognised Bill.?I recognised Bill for an hour.durative adverbial gives rise to an odd sentencejust like accomplishmentsdifferent in that the situation described is understood to take place instantaneously

Summary of situation typesSummaryDifferent types of situations are encoded differently, depending on:whether they are conceived as holistic events or processes with internal structurewhether they are long-term stateswhether they are know to have endpointsDifferent verbs are suited to different types of situations depending on:telicitydurativititystativity