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2005 LSA Institute Linguistic Society of America
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LSA.134 | The Varieties of Reference to Events

Barry Schein
MW 8:15-9:55
location: 32-124

The logical language Eventish comprises open classes of event concepts (stab(e)) and nominals (statue(e,x), clay(e,x)), and some closed classes: thematic relations between objects and events, both transitive and ditransitive, (Agent(e,x),…, in (e,x), with(e,e',x)); temporal, causal and mereological relations between events (C(e,e'), ee',…); and aspectual classifiers of events (Prog(e),…). In addition to propositional connectives and restricted nominal quantifiers, Eventish contains a restricted, universal quantifier over events and second-order (i.e., plural) (in)definite descriptions of events including pronouns or descriptive anaphors. Translation requires the decomposition of all predicates in the natural language that appear to be polyadic into combinations of elements drawn from the Eventish vocabulary.

The syntax & semantics of reference to events in Eventish logical forms provides the proper treatment of several semantical problems of natural language. Topics from among but not limited to:

  • A univocal syntax & semantics for conjunction. The semantics of right-node raising and number agreement, multiple conjunction and nonconstituent coordination.
  • Adverbial modification of participant relations: reciprocity, comitative and instrumental constructions.
  • Puzzles of event identity and description: the meaning of thematic relations, symmetric predicates, telicity and temporal adverbials. The causative analysis of polyadicity in natural language.
  • Plural reference. Generalized collective reference and predication: branching, independent & cumulative quantification.