scholarly journals On inchoative states. Evidence from modification of Polish perfective psych verbs by degree quantifiers

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Ewa Willim
Keyword(s):  
Event Structure ◽  
Perfective Aspect ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
Measure Function ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
The Subject

AbstractThe special properties that psych(ological) verbs manifest cross-linguistically have given rise to on-going debates in syntactic and semantic theorizing. Regarding their lexical aspect classification, while verbal psych predicates with the Experiencer argument mapped onto the subject (SE psych predicates) have generally been analyzed as stative, there is little agreement on what kinds of eventualities object Experiencer (OE) psych predicates describe. On the stative reading, OE psych predicates have been classified as atelic causative states. On the (non-agentive) eventive reading, they have been widely analyzed as telic change of state predicates and classified as achievements or as accomplishments. Based on Polish, Rozwadowska (2003, 2012) argues that nonagentive eventive OE psych predicates in the perfective aspect denote an onset of a state and that they are atelic rather than telic. This paper offers further support for the view that Polish perfective psych verbs do not denote a change of state, i.e., a transition from α to ¬α. The evidence is drawn from verbal comparison and the distribution of the comparative degree quantifier jeszcze bardziej ‘even more’ in perfective psych predicates. It is argued here that in contexts including jeszcze bardziej ‘even more’, the perfective predication denotes an onset of a state whose degree of intensity exceeds the comparative standard. While a degree quantifier attached to the VP in the syntax contributes a differential measure function that returns a (vague) value representing the degree to which the intensity of the Experiencer’s state exceeds the comparative standard in the event, it does not affect the event structure of the perfective verb and it does not provide the VP denotation it modifies with a final endpoint. As the perfective picks the onset of an upper open state, perfective psych predicates typically give rise to an atelic interpretation.

Changes in the argument and event structure of psych verbs in the history of Spanish

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-270
Author(s):  
Montserrat Batllori ◽  
Elisabeth Gibert-Sotelo ◽  
Isabel Pujol
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
History Of

This chapter offers a detailed study of changes affecting the argument structure of Spanish psych verbs that appear with a dative experiencer (EXP). After proposing a three-way classification of these verbs based on their etymological origin, the chapter traces two parallel, but interconnected, diachronic paths: the first one involves the development from transitive (or pronominal) to unaccusative constructions with a dative EXP, whereas the second one concerns the evolution from dynamic to stative events. The use and decrease of the passive in Classical Spanish is also shown to play a role in this change: to wit, passive and unaccusative structures with a dative EXP are structurally similar, as the prepositional agent phrase and the dative EXP originate in the same position.

scholarly journals The Greek Perfect through Gothic Eyes: Evidence for the Existence of a Unitary Semantic for the Greek Perfect in New Testament Greek

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Crellin
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Pure State ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Classical Language ◽  
Koine Greek

The semantics of the later Koine Greek perfect have been the subject of considerable debate in recent years. For the immediately post-Classical language Haug (2004) has suggested that the perfect combines resultant state and XN semantics, unifiable under the framework of event realisation (Bohnemeyer & Swift 2004). The present article presents a modified unitary semantic in terms of participant property (Smith 1997), and assesses its validity with reference to the translation of the perfect indicative active into Gothic. It is found that, while non-state verbs are translated only with past-tense forms in Gothic, contrary to traditional and even many modern views of the Greek perfect, the perfect of both pure state and change-of-state verbs are compatible with both past and non-past tense readings. The fact that this is the case regardless of the diachronic pedigree of the perfect forms concerned is taken as evidence consistent with the existence of the proposed unitary semantic for the Greek perfect in the New Testament in the eyes of the Gothic translator.

scholarly journals III. Experimental researches in electricity. —eighteenth series

1843 ◽  
Vol 133 ◽  
pp. 17-32 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
High Pressure ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Atmospheric Electricity ◽  
Glass Tube ◽  
Direct Relation ◽  
High Pressure Steam ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Pressure Steam ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Experimental Researches

2075. Two years ago an experiment was described by Mr. Armstrong and others, in which the issue of a stream of high pressure steam into the air produced abundance of electricity. The source of the electricity was not ascertained, but was supposed to be the evaporation or change of state of the water, and to have a direct relation to atmospheric electricity. I have at various times since May of last year been working upon the subject, and though I perceive Mr. Armstrong has, in recent communi­cations, anticipated by publication some of the facts which I also have obtained, the Royal Society may still perhaps think a compressed account of my results and con­clusions, which include many other important points, worthy its attention. 2076. The apparatus I· have used was not competent to furnish me with much steam or a high pressure, but I found it sufficient for my purpose, which was the in­vestigation of the effect and its cause, and not necessarily an increase of the electric development. Mr. Armstrong, as is shown by a recent paper, has well effected the latter. The boiler I used, belonging to the London Institution, would hold about ten gallons of water, and allow the evaporation of five gallons. A pipe 4½ feet long was attached to it, at the end of which was a large stop-cock and a metal globe, of the capacity of thirty-two cubic inches, which I will call the steam-globe , and to this globe, by its mouth-piece, could be attached various forms of apparatus, serving as vents for the issuing steam. Thus a cock could be connected with the steam-globe, and this cock be used as the experimental steam-passage; or a wooden tube could be screwed in; or a small metal or glass tube put through a good cork, and the cork screwed in; and in these cases the steam way of the globe and tube leading to the boiler was so large, that they might be considered as part of the boiler, and these terminal passages as the obstacles which, restraining the issue of steam, produced any important degree of friction.

Zero verb marking in Sranan

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid De Wit ◽  
Frank Brisard
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Perfective Aspect ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Basic Level

In the Surinamese creole language Sranan, verbs in finite clauses that lack overt TMA-marking are often considered to be ambiguous between past and present interpretations (depending on the lexical aspect of the verb involved) or analyzed as having a perfective value. We claim that these verbs are in fact zero-marked, and we investigate the various uses of this zero expression in relation to context and lexical aspect on the basis of corpus data and native speaker elicitations. It is shown that existing analyses do not cover and unify all the various uses of the construction. We propose, as an alternative, to regard the zero form as present perfective marker, whereby tense and aspect are conceived of as fundamentally epistemic categories, in line with Langacker (1991). This combination of present tense and perfective aspect, which is regarded as infelicitous in typological studies of tense and aspect (cf. the ‘present perfective paradox’, Malchukov 2009), gives rise to the various interpretations associated with zero. However, in all of its uses, zero still indicates that, at the most basic level, a situation belongs to the speaker’s conception of ‘immediate reality’ (her domain of ‘inclusion’). This basic ‘presentness’ distinguishes zero from the past-tense marker ben, which implies dissociation.

scholarly journals Variables in the acceptability of transitive variants for internally caused verbs of change of state in Romanian

Diacronia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Poponeț
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
The Subject

This paper explores the acceptability of transitive variants for a number of seemingly internally caused verbs of change of state in Romanian, i.e. the verbs express change of state events and lack transitives. To this effect, we designed a linguistic questionnaire which tested the acceptability of transitive counterparts of these verbs, in which we varied the denotation of the subject argument, i.e. natural force vs. agent. The overall results obtained from the 33 participants in the survey revealed the influence of semantic factors on transitive acceptability. The respondents marginally accepted the transitives with natural force subjects, while they rejected the transitives with agent subjects. On the other hand, transitive acceptability varies with the age of the participants, the low scores assigned to the transitives put to the test, irrespective of the denotation of the subject argument, by the youngest group points towards the maintenance of the current valence of these verbs.

scholarly journals Aspectual coercion and the typology of change of state predicates

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW KOONTZ-GARBODEN
Keyword(s):  
Event Structure ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Aspectual Coercion ◽  
Property Concepts ◽  
Point Of Departure

The point of departure of this paper is the consideration of how words with the meanings of property concept states (states that are lexicalized as adjectives in languages that have that lexical category, cf. Dixon 1982), e.g. ‘red’, are related to words denoting their corresponding change of state, e.g. ‘redden’. It is shown that while many languages relate words with these meanings to one another via some morpholexical process, this is not so in the Polynesian language Tongan. A detailed case study shows that in this language there are no non-causative change of state lexemes based on property concepts. Rather, these meanings are derived pragmatically from verbs denoting the corresponding state via aspectual coercion (Moens & Steedman 1988, Jackendoff 1997, de Swart 1998, Zucchi 1998, Michaelis 2004). This finding is shown to have consequences for the understanding of the typology of change of state predicates (Koontz-Garboden 2005, 2006, Koontz-Garboden & Levin 2005) and for theories of event structure: (a) the typological space is broader than previously thought and (b) theories of event structure need to be reconsidered in order to account for the postlexical derivation of meaning.

Case Marking and French Psych-Verbs

1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Herschensohn
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Accusative Case ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Behavior

This article confirms that two classes of psych-verbs in French, amuser-type ("accusative") and manquer-type ("unaccusative"), involve movement into the subject position. However, the two classes are distinguished by their ability to assign accusative Case: the former assign accusative Case and thereby mimic the syntactic behavior of transitive verbs; the latter assign only partitive Case, thus precluding accusative clitics, passive and WH extraction. The existence of different syntactic configurations of thematic roles with different psych-verb classes indicates a lack of direct correlation between syntactic position and thematic role.

Light verbs as classifiers in Udi

Diachronica ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice C. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Directed Motion ◽  
Light Verbs ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
The Third ◽  
Light Verb ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
The Subject

In Udi, most verbal lexemes are composed, in all tense-aspect-mood categories, of a light verb and an ‘initial’. It is argued here that in the first stage of this development, simplex verbs were juxtaposed with focused constituents. In the second stage, initials and verbs formed compounds, and this pattern spread beyond those that had once involved focus. In the third stage, the subject of this paper, light verbs become classifiers, classifying the verb type — inchoatives, other unaccusatives, unergatives, transitive verbs of inherently directed motion, transitive change-of-state verbs, other transitives. I argue also that the classes identified by (some of) the light verbs have not become less semantically motivated; rather the semantics has shifted from a relatively narrow meaning to one of the three major classes.

A cross-linguistic investigation of the combinational possibilities of the ‘for X time’ adverbial with different aspectual verb classes

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-231
Author(s):  
Athina Sioupi
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Information ◽  
Perfective Aspect ◽  
Imperfective Aspect ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Viewpoint Aspect

The paper observes that the Vendler classification is not sufficient as a classification of verbs, since it cannot explain why some telic verbs, such as change of state (COS) verbs and degree achievements (DAs) appear with the durational adverbial (d-adverbial) ‘for X time’ in Greek, in English and in German, while some atelics like semelfactives appear with the frame adverbial (f-adverbial) se X ora (‘in X time’) in Greek. In the spirit of Iatridou et al. (2003) it is proposed that the d-adverbial ‘for X time’ tests not only for (a)telicity but also for (im)perfectivity. It also argues that the two d-adverbials in Greek ja X ora and epi X ora (‘for X time’) are to be found with different grammatical (viewpoint) aspect: the former with perfective aspect and the latter with imperfective aspect. This is due to the fact that the ja X ora gives not only durative temporal information but also a lexical aspectual one, while the epi X ora gives only a durative temporal.

The production and comprehension of Spanish se use in L2 and heritage Spanish

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110165
Author(s):  
Aída García-Tejada ◽  
Alejandro Cuza ◽  
Eduardo Gerardo Lustres Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Psych Verbs ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Spanish Heritage Speakers ◽  
L1 English

Previous studies in the acquisition of clitic se in Spanish have focused on the syntactic processes needed to perform detransitivization. However, current approaches on event structure reveal that se encodes aspectual information which is crucial for its acquisition. We examine the use, intuition and interpretation of the aspectual features constraining the clitic se in Spanish with physical change of state verbs and psychological verbs in declarative sentences, and in a set of why-questions. Twenty Spanish heritage speakers (HSs), 20 English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish, and 20 Spanish monolingual speakers participated in the study. Results showed a clear advantage among the HSs over the L2 learners across conditions. In general, the use of se with change of state verbs at advanced levels of proficiency seems to be harder to acquire than with psych verbs due to the aspectual morphological marking in L1 English. Interestingly, L2 learners and HSs were less sensitive to the [+inchoative] feature with psych verbs in why-questions. Results are also discussed in terms of the age of onset of bilingualism as an affecting factor on the acquisition of the aspectual values of inchoative se.

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