Formal force dynamics for aspect and Aktionsart

Transcription

1 Formal force dynamics for aspect and Aktionsart Bridget Copley Universit Paris 8/UMR 7023 March 1, What is an event? 1.1 Stay-class verbs (1) a. Mary was in the room. b. Mary stayed in the room. Although nothing is visibly happening in either the situation described by (1a) or the situation described by (1b), be is a stative and stay is an eventive, by all the usual tests: (2) a. Mary is in the room. b. #Mary stays in the room. (3) a. #Mary is being in the room. b. Mary is staying in the room. (4) a. #Mary intentionally was in the room. b. Mary intentionally stayed in the room. What distinguishes be from stay? With stay, Mary has to exert some effort or maintaining force against some other pressure her disposition or tendency 1

2 to leave, or her obligation to leave, or perhaps some physical impediment in order to be in the room. This means that events are not just about what is visibly happening; they also take into account invisible forces that are being applied. As language treats the concept, an entity is taken to exert a force by virtue of having an intrinsic tendency towards manifesting it the force may be constant or temporary, but is in any case not extrinsic. (Talmy, 1985) These forces can be psychological forces, since no one need be physically trying to drag Mary from the room. (5) a. Max wants to go to the store. b. I held myself back from responding. The psychological component is normally included and understood as the factor that renders the... Agonist able to withstand [an opposing force]. It accomplishes this by maintaining the expenditure of effort, that is, by a continuously renewed exertion, where a goal-oriented part of the self overcomes a repose-oriented part so as to generate the output of energy. The net force need not be exerted by the subject: (6) a. The ball was on the table. b. The ball stayed on the table. (7) The ball kept (on) rolling along the green. = Talmy s (1Ab) Either the ball has a tendency toward rest which is being overcome by some external force acting on it, say, the wind, or the ball presently has a tendency toward motion that is in fact overcoming external opposition to it, say, from stiff grass. Cf. other verbs: keep, remain, maintain, sustain... 2

3 1.2 Tagalog Dell (1987) Two kinds of verb forms: N(eutral) and A(bility/involuntary action) (8) a. Itinulak ni Ben ang bato. (= Dell s (8)) N-pf-push gen Ben nom rock Ben pushed the rock b. Itinulak ni Ben ang bato, pero hindi N-pf-push gen Ben nom rock but not dahil napakabigat niyon. (= Dell s (9)) because very-heavy gen-that niya naitulak, gen-he A-pf-push Ben pushed the rock, but he could not make it move, because it was so heavy. (9) Inalis ko ang mantas, pero naubusan ako kaagad ng N-pf-remove gen-i nom stain, but run-out-of nom-i rapidly gen sabon, kaya hindi ko naalis. (= Dell s (30)) soap hence not gen-i A-pf-remove I tried to remove the stain, but I ran out of soap, and couldnt. (10) a. Nagatataka akong sinakal ni Pedro si Ben surprised nom-i-that N-pf-strangle gen Pedro nom Ben (imbes na saksakin). (= Dell s (21)) instead of stab I am surprised that Pedro strangled Ben (rather than stabbed him). b. Nagatataka akong nasakal ni Pedro si Ben; surprised nom-i-that A-pdf-strangle gen Pedro nom Ben akala ko hindi niya kaya. (= Dell s (22)) belief gen-i not gen-he able I am surprised that Pedro strangled Ben; I didnt think he could do it. (11) a. Kinunan ni Ben ng litrato si Luisa. N-pf-take gen Ben gen picture nom Luisa Ben took a picture of Luisa (= Dell s (3)) 3

4 b. Nakunan ni Ben ng litrato si Luisa. A-pf-take gen Ben gen picture nom Luisa Ben managed to take a picture of Luisa. Ben accidentally took a picture of Luisa. (= Dell s (4)) (12) Dell s generalizations: N form: agent performs a maneuver to bring about P A form: P results (from something unspecified) Cf. lexical ambiguity in English: (13) a. I warned him, but he ignored me. maneuver (cf. N form) b. I tried to warn him, but he ignored me. result (cf. A form) Also teach, tell,... Modeling Dell s generalizations in neo-davidsonian event semantics: (14) a. P results P(e) b. agent performs a maneuver... e : agent(x,e) c.... to bring about P goal(e,e)? goal(x,e,e)? We need a notion of events that can easily represent the agent s intention or goal to bring about a certain state of affairs. Presumably this is the same notion we need in order to deal with agents of stay-class verbs (replace bring about in ((40)a) with maintain). So we also need to assimilate this concept to those cases where the force comes from dispositions, tendencies, or other circumstances rather than an intention, and those cases where there is no agent at all. Essentially, force dynamics gives us a way to talk about what we mean by goal in these different cases. 4

5 2 Force dynamics 2.1 Force dynamics in lexical items Wolff(2005/in press) (15) Patient tendency for endstate Affector-patient concordance Result: endstate approached CAUSE N N Y ENABLE Y Y Y PREVENT Y N N DESPITE Y N Y (16) a. The blast caused the boat to heel. b. Vitamin B enables the body to digest food. c. Corn oil prevents butter from burning. d. The river flooded the town despite the dikes. (17) a. Tendency (of patient for endstate) P & E are collinear b. Concordance (of affector & patient) A & P are collinear c. Result: Endstate approached R & E are collinear Forces associated with the affector, A, patient P, and other forces, O, combine to produce a resultant force, R, that is directed toward the endstate, as specified by the position vector, E. 5

6 (18) (19) (20) 6

7 (21) (22) (23) 7

8 What we learn from Wolff: The semantics of these lexical items make reference to forces, so presumably forces are available for use in the semantics of functional items. People treat psychological forces in exactly the same way they treat physical forces. 2.2 Formal treatment and application to aspect and Aktionsart Forces are described by vectors. A vector has an origin, a direction, and a magnitude (we won t be needing the magnitude much). We will eventually need manner but won t worry about that here. (24) type f ranges over ordered triples consisting of an origin (type e) and a goal (type s,t ). A vector f consists of (x f, p f ). Relationship between situations and vectors: Every situation has a net force. A vector describes a force. (25) For any situation s and vector f: net(s) = f iff the force described by f is the net force of s. VPs are states, that is, predicates of situations (type s,t ). (26) At = λs λx λy. x is at y in s A vp is type s,t, e, f,t. This is composed from (27) and (28): (27) [go-to] g = λs λx λy. At(y)(x)(s) (28) [v] g = λp s,t λx λ f. f = (x,p) Aspect is type s, f,t. It relates a predicate of vectors to a situation. 8

9 (29) Prog = λs. λf : net(s) F (30) s,t ProgP s, f,t,t Prog e x f,t vp s,t, e, f,t v e, f,t vp s,t VP (31) Mary is going to Saint-Malo. [Mary be-ing go-to St-M] g = λs. λ f. f = ([Mary] g,[at([st-m] g )([Mary] g )])(net(s)) = 1 3 Does it work? 3.1 Stay-class verbs (32) [go-to] g = λx λy. (x, [At(y)(x)]) (33) [stay-at] g = λx λy. (x, [At(y)(x)]) Right now, stay-at looks like it would have the same meaning as what we ve written for go-to. That can t be right! Go-to presupposes that x does not start out at y: (34) a. Xander went to the store. b. Xander didn t go to the store. c. Did Xander go to the store? d. If Xander goes to the store... 9

10 Stay-at presupposes that x does start out at y: (35) a. Zoe stayed in the room. b. Zoe didn t stay in the room. c. Did Zoe stay in the room? d. If Zoe stays in the room... (36) Aktionsarten: a. Activities are like stay-at: Energy is put into the system to maintain the goal at (more or less) every moment. (Requires that the VP in activities, like that of states, be type s,t.) b. Telic predicates are like go-to: The goal is attained at the end of an effort. c. Statives are like be-at Eventives can t be predicated of the present without aspect because of a type mismatch (similar to any normal event argument story). No progressive without a force, where the maintaining forces of states count as forces. (37) a. The children are being annoying. b. #The children are being asleep. (38) #The book is staying on the table. (ok as part of a plan) 3.2 Tagalog (39) a. Itinulak ni Ben ang bato. (= Dell s (8)) N-pf-push gen Ben nom rock Ben pushed the rock b. Itinulak ni Ben ang bato, pero hindi N-pf-push gen Ben nom rock but not dahil napakabigat niyon. (= Dell s (9)) because very-heavy gen-that niya naitulak, gen-he A-pf-push Ben pushed the rock, but he could not make it move, because it was so heavy. 10

11 (40) Dell s generalizations: N form: agent performs a maneuver to bring about P A form: P results (from something unspecified) Idea: (41) Flavors of little v a. [v N ] g = λp s,t λx λ f. f = (x,p) b. [v A ] g = λp s,t λ f. f = (x,p) We need another relation between forces and situations other than the net relation. (42) Efficacy : A form is efficacious if it entails that no other force interferes other than the one described by the predicate. (43) Let S F = the set of situations in which a force f such that f F is applied efficaciously, without interference. (44) Pfv = λs λf. s S F For English, perfective forms are (generally) efficacious while progressive forms are not. Tagalog imperfective: much like English (though without futurate readings). When with A forms, these mean, as predicted, that the force is currently being applied: (45) #Kahit hindi pa nakakainom si Pedro ng kahit na isang patak even not yet A-impf-drink nom Pedro gen even na one drop ng bir, alam kong nakakainom siya ng sampung gen beer, kjnow gen-i-that A-impf-drink nom-he gen ten bote nang sunod-sunod. bottle nang follow-follow. Although Pedro has never drunk a drop of beer in his life, I know he is managing to drink ten bottles in a row. 11

12 In Tagalog, N forms are non-efficacious even when they have perfective aspect. A forms are always efficacious. Do we need a third kind of relation between forces and situations? (46) Let S F = the set of situations in which a force f such that f F is applied. Or, following Wolff, should we be talking about motion vectors (what actually happens, his E vector) as well as force vectors? It would be great to derive efficacy from something English progressives (47) Prog = λs λf. net(s) F (48) a. #The vase is falling. b. The vase is going to fall. 12

13 (49) Toby was singing. (50) Bennett and Partee-style progressive (Bennett and Partee, 1978) [Prog](w)(t )(p) = 1 iff t t: p(w)(t ) t t [ [ ] ] (51) Problem: imperfective paradox (Dowty, 1979) a. John was drawing a circle. b. John will have drawn a circle. (52) John was drawing a circle, but then his phone rang and he never finished it. Solution: p doesn t have to be true on an interval in the actual world, it just has to be true in all the worlds in which things work out normally ( inertia worlds ). (Landman (1992), Portner (1998), e.g.) We can tell an inertial story about be going to as well (Copley (2002, 2003)): (53) a. Toby is going to sing. b. John is going to draw a circle. (54) a. Toby was going to sing but he changed his mind. b. John was going to draw a circle but he changed his mind. (55) a. The vase was falling, but I caught it. b. The vase was going to fall, but I stopped the ball that was rolling at it. The explanation of the contrast in (56) relies on the idea that the event time overlaps the local time of evaluation in (56a), but it is after the local time of evaluation in (56b). If that idea is wrong, the contrast in (56) is a problem. 13

14 (56) Generalization 1 (G1): Progressives place their event overlapping the local evaluation time, unlike be going to, which places its event after the local evaluation time. (57) a. #Toby is getting sick tomorrow. imperfective, physical b. Toby is going to get sick tomorrow. future, physical But: Futurate readings (58) a. Toby is making pizza tomorrow. imperfective, intentional b. Toby is going to make pizza tomorrow. future, intentional G1 isn t correct. (59) Hypothesis: For some X, X must overlap the local evaluation time in English progressives. X CANNOT be the event (or the event time, or the minimal situation that the event is predicated of). What could it be instead? Answer (we ve already mostly given it): The vp names a force. The progressive says that that force is the net force of the local situation. For inertia worlds, there is a cancellable implicature that nothing interferes, that is, that any forces that may affect the outcome are already considered in calculating the net force of the situation. (60) a. Mary is crossing the street. b. Mary is walking to her death. Note that physical and psychological forces are all considered in order to calculate the net force. If they weren t, (60a) would mean that Mary was wanting to cross the street. This is where the ability requirement, discussed by Landman, comes in. (61) Mary is slaying the Roman army. 14

15 References Bennett, M. and B. Partee (1978). Toward the Logic of Tense and Aspect in English. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Copley, B. (2002). The Semantics of the Future. Ph. D. thesis, MIT. To appear, Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics, Routledge. Copley, B. (2003). Aspect and scope in future conditionals. USC ms. Copley, B. (2005). Ordering and reasoning. In J. Gajewski, V. Hacquard, B. Nickel, and S. Yalcin (Eds.), New Work on Modality, Number 51. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. Dell, F. (1987). An aspectual distinction in Tagalog. Oceanic Linguistics (1-2). Dowty, D. (1979). Word meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel. Landman, F. (1992). The progressive. Natural Language Semantics 1 (1), Portner, P. (1998). The progressive in modal semantics. Language 74 (4), Talmy, L. (1985). Force dynamics in language and thought. In W. H. Eilfort, P. D. Kroeber, and K. L. Peterson (Eds.), Papers from the Parasession on Causatives and Agentivity at the Twenty-First Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, pp Chicago Linguistic Society. Wolff, P. (in press). Representing causation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 15