Agent control over non culminating events

Demirdache, Hamida; Martin, Fabienne

doi:10.1075/ivitra.9.09dem

Part of

Verb Classes and Aspect
Edited by Elisa Barrajón López, José Luis Cifuentes Honrubia and Susana Rodríguez Rosique
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 9] 2015
► pp. 185–217

Agent control over non culminating events

Hamida Demirdache | University of Nantes

Fabienne Martin | University of Stuttgart

This paper investigates a correlation between the availability of non-culminating construals for accomplishments and the control of the agent over the described event (the Agent Control Hypothesis, ach). We consider two versions of the ach, on the basis of a new typology of non-culminating construals. On the strong version, non-culmination requires agent control whether what is being denied is the occurrence of any change of state of the type φ encoded by the verb, or merely that the change of state satisfies the property φ to degree 1. On its weak version, agent control is required in the former case only. The evidence reviewed from Romance, Germanic, Salish, and Mandarin, suggests that the weak version of the ach might indeed hold. The weak version of the ach seems, however, to be too weak for Salish languages. The final section shows how the existing analyses of non-culminating construals could capture the link between non-culmination and agentivity.

Keywords: agent vs. causer subjects, agentivity, non-culminating accomplishments, non-culminating causation

Published online: 25 November 2015

https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.9.09dem

References

Alexiadou, Artemis, Anagnostopoulou, Elena and Schäfer, Florian

2006 “The properties of anticausatives crosslinguistically.” In Phases of interpretation, Mara Frascarelli (ed), 187–212. Berlin: de Gruyter.

to appear. External arguments in transitivity alternations: a layering approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Altschuler, Daniel

2013 “There is no neutral aspect.” Proceedings of SALT 23: 40–61.

Altshuler, Daniel

2014 “A typology of aspectual operators.” Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 32 (3): 735–775.

Arche, Maria

2014 “The construction of viewpoint aspect: the imperfective revisited.” Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 32(3): 791–831.

Arkadiev, Peter M. and Letuchiy, Alexander

2009 The syntax and semantics of event structure and Adyghe causatives. Ms, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Bar-El, Leora

2005 Aspectual distinctions in Skwxwú7mesh. University of British Columbia PhD Dissertation.

Bar-El, Leora, Davis, Henry and Matthewson, Lisa

2005 “On Non-Culminating Accomplishments.” In Proceedings of the 35th annual meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 35) 1: 87–102.

Beavers, John

2006 Argument/oblique alternations and the structure of lexical meaning. PhD Dissertation, Stanford University.

2010 “Aspectual Analysis of Ditransitive Verbs of Caused Possession in English.” Journal of Semantics 28: 1–54.

Bittner, Maria

2007 “Aspectual universals of temporal anaphora.” In Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect, Susan Rothstein (ed), 349–385. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Bochnak, Ryan

2013 “Two sources of scalarity within the verb phrase.” In Studies in the composition and decomposition of event predicates, Boban Arsenijević, Berit Gehrke and Rafael Marín (eds), 99–123. Amsterdam: Springer.

Copley, Bridget and Wolff, Philip

2014 “Non-culmination and agency. Exploring the hypothesis space.” Talk given to Chronos 11 , Pisa.

Cusic, David

1981 Verbal plurality and aspect. PhD Dissertation, Stanford University.

Davis, John

1978. Pronominal paradigms in Sliammon. In Papers for the 13th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages , 208–236.

Davis, Henry

2000 “Salish evidence on the causative-inchoative alternation.” Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science series 4: 25–60. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Davis, Henry and Matthewson, Lisa

2009 “Issues in Salish Syntax and Semantics.” Language and Linguistics Compass 3(4): 1097–1166.

Dell, François

1983 “An aspectual distinction in Tagalog.” Oceanic Linguistics 22-23: 175–206.

Demirdache, Hamida

1997 “Out of control in St’át’imcets Salish and event (de)composition.” In Theoretical issues in the morphology-syntax interface, Amaya Mendikoetxea and Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds), 97–143: Diputacion Foral de Gipuzkoa.

Demirdache, Hamida and Martin, Fabienne

2013 “Agent control over non-culminating events,” Ms, University of Nantes and University of Stuttgart.

Demirdache, Hamida and Sun, Chaofen

2014 “On non-culminating accomplishments in Mandarin.” Ms, University of Nantes.

Filip, Hana

2008 “Events and Maximalization: The case of telicity and perfectivity.” In Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect, Susan Rothstein (ed), 217–256. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Filip, Hana and Rothstein, Susan

2006 “Telicity as a semantic parameter.” In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 14: The Princeton Meeting, James Lavine, Steven Franks, Hana Filip and Mila Tasseva-Kurkchieva (eds), 139–156. Ann Arbor MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.

Folli, Raffaella, and Harley, Heidi

2005 “Flavors of v.” Aspectual inquiries, Paula Kempchinsky and Roumyana Slabakova (eds), 95–120. Netherlands: Springer.

Freed, Alice

1978 The Semantics of English aspectual complementation. Dordrecht: Springer.

Gerdts, Donna

2008 “Halkomelem limited control as speaker’s viewpoint.” Handout for the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), Chicago.

Gropen, Jess, Pinker, Steven, Hollander, Michelle Goldberg, Richard and Wilson, Ronald

1989 “The learnability and acquisition of the dative alternation in English.” Language: 203–257.

Hacquard, Valentine

2006 Aspects of modality. PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ikegami, Yoshihiko

1985 “Activity, Accomplishment, Achievement: A Language that Can’t Say, ‘I Burned It, But it Didn’t Burn’ and One that Can.” In Linguistics and Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Rulon S. Wells, Makkai, Adam and Alan K. Melby (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Jacobs, Peter

2011 Control in Skwxwú7mesh. PhD Dissertation, University of British Columbia.

Kennedy, Christopher

2010 “Incremental Change.” In Telicity, Change, and State, Violeta Demonte and Louise McNally (eds), 103–121. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kennedy, Christopher and McNally, Louise

2005 “Scale Structure, Degree Modification, and the Semantics of Gradable Predicate.” Language 81(2): 345–381.

Kiyota, Masaru

2008 Situation aspect and viewpoint aspect: From Salish to Japanese. British Columbia: Doctoral Dissertation University of British Columbia.

Koenig, Jean-Pierre and Muansuwan, Nuttanart

2000 “How to End Without Ever Finishing: Thai Semi–perfectivity.” Journal of Semantics 17(2): 147–182.

Koenig, Jean-Pierre and Davis, Anthony

2001 “Sublexical modality and the structure of lexical semantic representations.” Linguistics and Philosophy 24(1): 71–124.

Koenig, Jean-Pierre and Chief, Lian-Cheng

2008 “Scalarity and State-Changes in Mandarin, Hindi, Tamil, and Thai.” In Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 7, Oliver Bonami and Patricia Cabredo Hofherr (eds), 241–262.

Kratzer, Angelika

2013 Creating a family: constructing transfer of possession verbs. Plenary talk given to the Little V workshop, Leiden, December.

Krifka, Manfred

1989 “Nominal reference, temporal constitution, and quantification in event semantics.” In Renate Bartsch, Johan van Benthem and Peter van Emde Boas (eds), Semantics and Contextual Expressions. Foris, Dordrecht: Foris.

1992 “Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution.” In Lexical Matters, Ivan Sag and Anna Szabolci (eds), Stanford: CSLI Publications, 29–53.

1998 “The origins of telicity.” In Events and Grammar, Susan Rothstein (ed.), 197–235. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Levin, Beth

1999 “Objecthood: An Event Structure Perspective.” Proceedings of CLS 35, volume 1: The Main Session. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago.

Lyutikova, Ekaterina and Tatevosov, Sergei

2010 “Atelicity and anticausativization.” In Argument Structure and Syntactic Relations: A cross-linguistic perspective, Maia Duguine, Susana Huidobro and Nerea Madariaga (eds), 35–68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Mari, Alda and Martin, Fabienne

2009 On the interaction between aspect and verbal polysemy: (im-) perfectivity and (non-) implicativity. Ms, Institut Jean Nicod and Stuttgart University.

Martin, Fabienne

2006 Prédicats statifs, causatifs et résultatifs en discours. Sémantique des adjectifs évaluatifs et des verbes psychologiques. PhD dissertation, Université libre de Bruxelles.

To appear. “Explaining the link between agentivity and non-culminating causation.” In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistics Theory 25 (SALT 25), Sarah d’Antonio, Carole-Rose Little, Mary Rose Moroney and Mia Wiegand (eds)

Martin, Fabienne and Schäfer, Florian

2012 “The modality of offer and other defeasible causative verbs.” In Proceedings of the 30th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 30), Nathan Arnett and Ryan Bennett (eds), 248–258. Somerville, MA, USA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

2013 “On the Argument Structure of Verbs with Bi-and Mono-Eventive Uses.” In Proceedings of the 42nd annual meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 42), Stefan Keine and Shayne Sloggett (eds), 297–308. Amherst: GLSA Publications.

2014 “Causation at the syntax/semantics interface.” In Causation in grammatical structures, Bridget Copley and Fabienne Martin (eds), 209–244. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

to appear. “Sublexical modality in defeasible causative verbs.” In Modality across syntactic categories, Ana Arregui, María Luisa Rivero and Andrés Salanova (eds) Oxford Oxford University Press

Mateu, Jaume and Rigau, Gemma

2010 “Verb-particle constructions in Romance: A lexical-syntactic account.” Probus, 22(2), 241–269.

Matthewson, Lisa

2004 “On the absence of telic accomplishments in St’át’imcets.” In Proceedings of the 9th Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of the Languages of the Americas. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics.

Nash, Léa

2006 “Dative voice.” Talk given to the Atelier franco-allemand Stuttgart/Paris 8, University of Stuttgart.

Oehrle, Richard

1976 The grammatical status of the English dative alternation. PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Park, Ki-Seong

1993 Korean causatives in role and reference grammar.MA Dissertation, State University of New York.

Parsons, Terence

1990 Events in the Semantics of English. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Pederson, Eric

2008 “Event realization in Tamil.” In Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability, Melissa Bowerman and Penelope Brown (eds), 331–355: New York/ London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Piñón, Christopher

1997 “Achievements in an event semantics.” In Proceedings of SALT 7, Aaron Lawson (ed), 276–293.

2008 “Aspectual composition with degrees.” In Adjectives and Adverbs. Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse, Louise McNally and Christopher Kennedy (eds), 183–219. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2009 “Incrementality by degrees.” Plenary talk given to Chronos 9, Paris.

2014 “Reconsidering Defeasible Causative Verbs.” Talk given to Chronos 11, Pisa.

Pires de Oliveira, Roberta and Renato Miguel Basso

2014 “Perfectivity and Telicity in Brazilian Portuguese. Time boundaries, worlds and pragmatics.” Talk given to Chronos 11, Pisa.

Pustejovsky, James

1998 The generative lexicon. Cambridge, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Rappaport Hovav, Malka

2008 “Lexicalized Meaning and the Internal Temporal Structure of Events.” In Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of Aspect, Susan Rothstein (ed), 13–42. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Rappaport Hovav, Malka and Beth Levin

1998 “Building verb meanings.” In The projection of arguments: lexical and compositional factors, Miriam Butt and Wilhelm Geuder (eds), 97–134. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Rothstein, Susan

2012 “Another look at accomplishments and incrementality.” In Telicity, Change, and State, Violeta Demonte and Louise McNally (eds), 60–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schäfer, Florian

2012 “Two types of external argument licensing–the case of causers.” Studia Linguistica 66(2): 128–180.

Singh, Munindar

1998 “On the semantics of the perfective aspect.” Natural Language Semantics 6(2): 171–199.

Smith, Carlota

1991 The parameter of aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Smollett, Rebecca

2005 “Quantized direct objects don’t delimit after all.” In Perspectives on aspect, Henk J. Verkuyl, Henriette De Swart and Angeliek Van Hout (eds), 41–59. Netherlands: Springer.

Talmy, Leonard

1985 “Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms.” In Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon 3, Timothy Shopen (ed), 57–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2000 Toward a cognitive semantics 2: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Tatevosov, Sergei

2008 “Subevental structure and non-culmination.” Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 7, Oliver Bonami and Patricia Cabredo-Hofherr (eds), 7, 393–422.

Tatevosov, Sergei and Ivanov, Mikhail

2009 “Event structure of non-culminating accomplishments.” In Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect, and Modality, Lotte Hogeweg, Helen de Hoop and Andrej Malchukov (eds), 83–129. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Thompson, Laurence

1985 “Control in Salish grammar.” In Relational typology, Frans Plank (ed). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Travis, Lisa

2005 “Agents and causes in Malagasy and Tagalog.” In The Syntax of Aspect, Nomi Erteschik-Shir and Tova Rapoport (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tsujimura, Natsuko

2003 “Event cancellation and telicity.” Japanese/Korean Linguistics 12: 388–399.

Turner, Claire

2011 Representing events in Saanich (Northern Straits Salish): the interaction of aspect and valence. PhD Dissertation, University of Surrey.

Van Valin, Robert

2005 Exploring the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Verkuyl, Henk

1993 A theory of Aspectuality: The ineraction between Temporal and Atemporal Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Watanabe, Honoré

2003 “A Morphological Description of Sliammon, Mainland Comox Salish: With a Sketch of Syntax.” Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim, Osaka: Osaka Gakuin University.

Yoon, Youngeun

1996 “Total and partial predicates and the weak and strong interpretations.” Natural language semantics, 4/3, 217–236.

Cited by

Cited by 27 other publications

Order by:

Altshuler, Daniel

2015. Research on Aspect: Reflections and New Frontiers. In Logic, Language, and Computation [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 8984], ► pp. 1 ff.