CAS LX 502

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CAS LX 502

• 4b. Tense and aspect
• 5.1-5.2

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Situations

• We can think of sentences as referring to
  situations (events, states, eventualities).
• A sentence like Pat opened the door can be
  thought of as meaning
• There is an event, it is an opening, it affects
  the door, and it is instigated by Pat.

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Tense

• Events take place in time, and language uses
  tense to situate events in time. (deictic, like a
  pronoun)
• Pat sang the national anthem.
• (The singing event was in the pastbefore now)
• Pat will sing the national anthem.
• (The singing event is in the futureafter now)
• Pat is singing the national anthem.
• (The singing event is now)

Now
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Situation types

• States static and unchanging
• Individual-level
• Pat is tall.
• Pat knows French.
• Stage-level
• Pat is hungry.
• Pat is bored.
• Events dynamic, involving motion/change
• Pat is pushing the cart into the corner.

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Tense vs. aspect

• Tense locates a situation in time, aspect
  describes the internal temporal structure of the
  situation.
• Completed (perfect)
• Pat had eaten a sandwich.
• Pat has eaten a sandwich.
• Pat will have eaten a sandwich.
• Ongoing (progressive)
• Pat was eating a sandwich.
• Pat is eating a sandwich.
• Pat will be eating a sandwich.

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Classifying situations

• States (want, love, hate, know, believe)
• Activities (run, walk, swim, push a cart)
• Accomplishments (run a mile, walk to the store,
  paint a picture, draw a circle)
• Achievements (recognize, find, stop, reach the
  top)
• Semelfactives (cough, knock) (dont change state)

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Classifying situations

• The different situation types essentially define
  the different kinds of shadow the situation
  casts on the timeline.

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Diagnosing situation types

• Statives and achievements are generally
  incompatible with the progressive.
• Pat knows French. Pat is hungry.
• Pat is knowing French. Pat is being hungry.
• Pat is reaching the top.
• Pat is walking. Pat is walking to the store.
• Individual-level statives dont sound good in the
  imperative.
• Be tall! Know French!

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Lexical aspect vs.sentence aspect

• Lexically, predicates have an inherent situation
  type (aktionsart or lexical aspect).
• However, a sentence can denote a situation type
  that differs from the lexical aspect of its
  predicate. Structure also plays a role, sentence
  aspect can be coerced.
• Pat knocked on the door. (achievement/semelfactive
  )
• Pat is knocking on the door. (iterative,
  activity)
• Pat drank beer. (activity)
• Pat drank a beer. (accomplishment)

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Inchoative vs. resultative

• Different predicates can also concentrate on
  different parts of an event.
• Melting is inchoative, focuses on the beginning.
• The ice is melting. (The ice has melted).
• Baking a cake is resultative, focuses on the
  endpoint.
• Pat is baking a cake. (Pat has not baked a cake).

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Telicity

• An event that has a natural endpoint is said to
  be telic. An event that does not is said to be
  atelic.
• Pat pushed the cart.
• Pat pushed the cart into the corner.
• Frame adverbials (in 5 minutes) and durative
  adverbials (for 5 minutes) can usually
  distinguish these
• Pat pushed the cart (in 5 minutes) (for 5
  minutes).
• Pat pushed the cart into the corner (in 5
  minutes) (for 5 minutes).

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Aspect and telicity

• Even for a telic event (cross the street), the
  sentence aspect can affect whether a sentence
  implies that the endpoint was reached.
• Pat crossed the street.
• Pat has crossed the street.
• Pat was crossing the street.

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Aside Verbs of creation

• Suppose Pat dumps some flour into a mixing bowl.
• We can say that Pat is making pancakes or that
  Pat is making a cake.
• Which is it?

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The house Jack London was building when he died.

• In northern California, one can visit Jack
  London State Park and see the house that Jack
  London was building when he died. At least this
  is what the tourist guides say. It isnt much of
  a houseonly a foundation and parts of some
  walls. But native speakers of English call it a
  house. Ordinary language seems to be governed
  here by something like Platos theory of forms
  material things that aspire after ideals are
  named after those ideals, in spite of their
  failure to live up to the ideal itself. In short,
  people describe unfinished houses as houses,
  and my analysis assumes that this is the correct
  usage. The problem is not ontologicaleveryone
  agrees that the thing in question exists. The
  issue is whether it is a house. (Parsons
  1990174)
• Cf also Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See, p. 146.

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Predicates and objects

• If we think about the denotation of apples as
  compared to an apple, only the latter has a
  definite boundary. How big is an apple? How big
  is apples? Similarly, how big is soup?
• Events are sort of like this too. A telic event
  has a size, a boundary. Reach the top vs. climb.
• We can think of events as sort of like abstract
  individuals.
• I saw Pat eat lunch.
• Fidos barking kept me awake.

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Mass and count

• Nouns can be distinguished into two types, those
  that can be counted (count), and those that cant
  (mass).
• I have two tomatoes.
• I have two barleys.
• One thing that differentiates them is what
  happens if you cut them in half
• If you divide your tomato, neither resulting
  thing is a tomato.
• If you divide your barley, both resulting things
  are barley.

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Homogeneity

• Soup soup soup
• Tomato tomato 2 tomatoes.
• We can call the property that mass nouns have
  homogeneity.
• Pretty much the same property can be said to hold
  of states and activities, but not accomplishments
  or achievements.
• Eating eating eating
• Being tall being tall being tall
• Walking to the store walking to the store
  walking to the store twice.
• Finding a quarter finding a quarter finding
  two quarters

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Combining predicates and objects

• Interestingly, for something like eat (an
  activity, homogeneous), if it is combined with a
  homogeneous object, the result is a homogeneous
  activity, but when it is combined with a bounded
  object, the result is a bounded event
  (accomplishment).
• Pat ate soup (for an hour) (in an hour).
• Pat ate the apple (??for an hour) (in an hour).

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Coercion/shifting

• Things that are normally count nouns can be
  treated as mass nouns if coerced, and vice versa.
• There is too much apple in the salad.
• I ordered two soups.
• And, then
• I ate a soup in five minutes.
• I ate apple for five minutes.

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Sentences as denoting events

• One way of looking at what sentences mean is as
  event descriptions.
• Pat ate an apple.
• (There was) an eating, it affected an apple, it
  was instigated by Pat.
• Like definite descriptions denote individuals,
  sentences denote events.
• The student in the corner.

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Sentences as denoting events

• Some events are described by Pat swam.
• Some of those are described by Pat swam fast.
• If we look at sentences in this way, we can
  understand why Pat swam fast entails that Pat
  swam. All of the events described by Pat swam
  fast also fit the description of Pat swam.
• Pat struck the door.
• Pat struck the door violently.
• Pat struck the door with a hammer.
• Pat struck the door violently with a hammer.

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