Week 6: The VP Domain I - The Event and vp Seminar: The Syntax-Semantics Interface M. Louie February Introduction

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1 Week 6: The Domain - The Event and vp Seminar: The Syntax-Semantics nterface M. Louie February ntroduction Last Week: The Mass/Count Distinction We briefly mentioned Borer 2005 s notion of (non-)quantity which correlates to what Krifka 1989 s notion of quantization Koopman & Sportiche 1991: The initially merges in the specifier of, to receive the -theta role, then raises to spec in order to receive nominative case (1) ndependent Evidence: Stranded Quantifiers a. All the girls quickly ate cake b. The girls all quickly ate cake c. *The girls quickly ate cake all These are both properties used to model the telic/atelic distinction QP Before we can discuss it, we need to learn more about the syntactic literature surrounding s nom all the girls QP 1. Some -Syntax The -nternal Subject Hypothesis 2. The Semantics of Events Davidsonian Events Arguments Neo-Davidsonian Arguments 3. Kratzer 1996: Severing the External Argument The Split Neo-Davidsonian Arguments in the Syntax 1.1 The -nternal Subject Hypothesis n the system we ve discussed so far, an theme as sister to the it receives its theta-role from, but the merges into the specifier of 1 But how can the receive its thematic role from the, when it merges so far away from it? 1 Assuming an active sentence. eat(x,y) acc θ AGx θ THy all AdvP theme the girls quickly eat(x,y) The -quantifier all can only appear in positions where the the girls shows up, at a point in the derivation 2 Davidsonian Event Arguments Lexical Entries for verbs so far:. eat = λy.λx.eat(x, y) The individuals, x, y, are the verb s individual arguments Davidson (1967):erbs must also refer to an event argument (2) Jones buttered the toast slowly with a knife in the bathroom at midnight. cake 1

2 Treating slowly, with a knife, in the bathroom, at midnight as arguments is problematic from a learnability perspective! These phrases behave like modifiers with respect to entailment patterns: Definition: Entailment A sentence S 1 entails a sentence S 2 ( S 1 = S 2 ),. iff in every context in which S 1 is true,.. S 2 is also true. Predicate Modification λx. f (x) g(x) λx.f(x) λx.g(x) (5) a. Jones buttered the toast slowly with a knife in the bathroom b. Jones buttered the toast slowly with a knife c. Jones buttered the toast slowly d. Jones buttered the toast Q:...but if these are modifiers, what are they semantically modifying?. Not the (butter-er) or theme (butter-ee)! Davidson: They re modifying a buttering event argument. dea: A verb s lexical entry would then look something like this: (6) butter = λy.λx.λe.butter(e, x, y). (Read butter(e,x,y) as e is an event of x buttering y ) Modifiers are modelled with the connective (which is functionally equivalent to set intersection) (3) a. t s a [big, red, sparkly balloon] NP b. big red sparkly balloon = λx.balloon(x) big(x) red(x) sparkly(x). {x: balloon(x)} {x: big(x)} {x: red(x)} {x: sparkly(x)} Dropping modifiers thus has the meaning of dropping conjuncts, and given the semantics of conjunction ( ), if p q is true, then p is true (4) a. t s a [red, sparkly balloon] NP b. red sparkly balloon = λx.balloon(x) red(x) sparkly(x). {x: balloon(x)} {x: red(x)} {x: sparkly(x)} Given the proposed semantics of modification, we expect that (3a) = (4a) Observation: (5a) = (5b) = (5c) = (5d) 1. D e, ndividuals = {a, b, c, d,...} type e 2. D t, Truth alues = {1, 0} type t 3. E, Events = {e 1, e 2, e 3, e 4,... } type l (7) a. e [butter(e,j,t) slowly(e) in-the-bathroom(e) midnight(e)] b. e [butter(e,j,t) slowly(e) in-the-bathroom(e)] c. e [butter(e,j,t) slowly(e)] d. e [butter(e,j,t)] Q: s there any corroborating evidence for an event argument? Observation: ndividual arguments can be referred to and quantified over 2

3 (8) a. The student i walked into the Great Hall. She i was impressed. b. Every student had a sleeping-bag. x [student(x) have-sleeping-bag(x)] 3 Kratzer 1996: Severing the External Argument Kratzer 1996: The external argument (eg., ) independently associates with the verb in the syntax, via its own functional phrase, oicep f there is an event argument, we should also be able to refer to it and quantify over it (9) a. Neville asked Ginny to the ball. t made her depressed. oicep b. Every time Trelawney looked at s hands, she flinched. oice e[look-at(e,t,h,) e flinch(e,t)] oice θ AGx 2.1 Neo-Davidsonian Approaches to Event Structure Davidson 1967: n addition to individual arguments, verbs have event arguments eat(e,y) θ THy theme (10) Davidson 1967 s Ordered-Argument Method buy = λy.λx.λe.buy(e, x, y) 3.1 Kratzer 1996 s Empirical Motivation Observation: nternal arguments trigger particular interpretations of verbs, while external arguments do not (Marantz 1984) ( e is an event of x buying y ) Parsons 1990: erbs only have event arguments; the and theme are introduced by semantically independent thematic relations (11) The Neo-Davidsonian Method of Argument Assocation buy = λy.λx.λe.buy(e) (x, e) theme(y, e) ( e is buying event and x is the of e, and y is the theme of e ) (12) a. throw a baseball b. throw support behind a candidate c. throw a boxing match (i.e., take a dive) d. throw a party e. throw a fit (13) a. take a book from the shelf b. take a bus to New York c. take a nap d. take an aspirin e. take a letter in shorthand Parsons 1990 s claim is purely about the semantic interpretation of a sentence; he makes no claims about the syntax There are also several previous syntactic arguments for a split projection 3

4 eg., Larson 1988: On the Double-Object Construction Hypothesis 1: Hypothesis 2: j i D PP XP D N D N [+past] {*i/j} P show X James s son saw D N show to X PP Figure 1: Anaphors can only co-refer to c-commanding s P to These kinds of causative/active structures can be marked with overt morphology, like Malagasy active marker an-: (Hung 1988) Assumption: Reflexives like must be c-commanded by their antecedent (see figure 1) (14) Evidence from anaphoric reflexives: a. i saw i. ( saw ) b. *Himself i saw i. (15) m-an-sasa ny lamba pres-act-wash the clothes (amin ny (with the Rasoa washes the soap (with the soap). savony) soap) Rasoa Rasoa c. #[James i s son] j saw i ( saw James) d..[james i s son] j saw j ( saw ) m- Rasoa Only in Hypothesis 2 does asymmetrically c-command an- Q: So what is this mystery XP projection? ny lamba (PP) ntuition: show = cause to see sasa.. give = cause to have 4

5 3.2 Kratzer s oicep and Semantic Composition dea: The causative/active occupies a functional head (oice) that This rule takes a predicate of events, g(e), and a relation between events and individuals, f(e,x), and indicates that these are the same event 1. Selects as its complement 2. ntroduces the external argument as its specifier, and 3. Assigns accusative case to the specifier of e[(r, e) feed(e, d) past(e)] English has this structure too, except oice is not overt; main verbs raise Hagrid oicep λe.[(r, e) feed(e, d)] to this position to derive the correct word order oicep oicep oice oice λp. e[p(e) past(e)] r Hagrid oice oice λx.λe.[(x, e) feed(e, d)] λe.feed(e,d) Dumbledore oice Dumbledore oice λx.λe.(x, e) feed λx.λe.feed(e,y) d the dog see learn Restriction: Event dentification can only apply if the events have compatible Aktionsarten/aspectual classes endler 1957/Rothstein 2004: s fall into different aspectual classes Q: What is the semantic interpretation of oicep? Kratzer 1996 proposes a new compositional rule Event dentification Event dentification λx.λe. f (e, x) g(e) λx.λe.f(e,x) λe.g(e) ERB CLASS Examples Statives know, have, like, understand, desire,... non-dynamic situations Activities run, walk, sleep, drink water, eat apples,... open-ended processes Accomplishments read the book, eat an apple, run a marathon, sink,... processes with a natural endpoint Achievements recognize, find, reach the top,... near-instantaneous events with change of state Event dentification can apply if 5

6 The (g(e) is stative, and the oice head f(e,x) is stative - eg., holder(e,x) The (g(e) is eventive, and the oice head f(e,x) is eventive - eg., (e,x) (More on aktionsarten next week) Next Week: The Domain - Lexical Aspect C-Command Empirically and historically important structural configuration: Many different definitions for c-command within the literature C-Command: A node X c-commands node Y if every (branching) node dominating X also dominates Y, and neither X nor Y dominate each other. Carnie 2012:...if every node... Haegeman 1994:...if every branching node... nformally, a node c-commands its sister, and all of its sister s descendents. (Haegeman 1994: But if a node has no sisters, it c- command everything its mother c-commands). References Abney, Steven Paul The english noun phrase in its sentential aspect: Massachusetts nstitute of Technology dissertation. Borer, Hagit Structuring sense: The normal course of events. Oxford University Press. Carnie, Andrew Syntax: A Generative ntroduction, Third Edition. John Wiley & Sons. Davidson, Donald The logical form of action sentences Haegeman, Liliane ntroduction to government and binding theory, 2nd edition. Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics. Hung, Henrietta The structure of derived nouns and verbs in malagasy: A syntactic account. Ms., McGill University, Montreal. Koopman, Hilda & Dominique Sportiche The position of subjects. Lingua 85(2-3) Kratzer, Angelika Severing the External Argument from the erb. n Johann Rooryck & Laurie Zaring (eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Krifka, Manfred Nominal Reference, Temporal Constitution and Quantification in Event Semantics. n Renate Bartsch, Johan F. A. K. van Benthem & Peter van Emde Boas (eds.), Semantics and contextual expression, Foris Publications. Z Larson, Richard K On the double object construction. Linguistic inquiry 19(3) T X K Q E C M Marantz, Alec On the nature of grammatical relations. Linguistic nquiry Monographs (10) Parsons, Terrence Events in the Semantics of English. Cambridge: MT Press. R P U F Rothstein, Susan D Structuring Events: a Study in the Semantics of Lexical Aspect. Wiley-Blackwell. endler, Zeno erbs and Times. The Philosophical Review 66(2)