Reinterpretations in adverbal modification : a general approach

This paper is concerned with the fact that a number of adverbal modifications involve a systematic reinterpretation of at least one of the expressions connected by the operation in question. It offers an approach in which such transfers of meaning turn out to be a result of contextually controlled enrichments of an underspecified as well as a strictly compositionally structured semantic representation. The approach proposed is general for three reasons: First, it takes into account not only reinterpretations in temporal but also such in non-temporal modification. Second, it allows considering so-called secondary predications as a particular kind of adverbal modification. Third, it explains the respective reinterpretations within a uniform formal framework of meaning variation

On Resultative Past Participles in Spanish

Gran part de la bibliografia teòrica sobre els participis de passat (PPs) del castellà s’ha centrat en les restriccions d’Aktionsarten que tenen en les clàusules absolutes i en les perífrasis verbals. Aquest article s’ocupa de la relació, sovint deixada de banda, entre l’aspecte lèxic i l’aspecte gramatical en la gramàtica dels PPs. D’acord amb Kratzer, Embick, Gehrke, McIntyre i altres autors, distingim els PPs resultatius (PP-R) dels eventius (PP-E) i mostrem que el seu significat és una conseqüència de la interacció dels trets de veu i de perfet. Les diferències en les interpretacions temporals dels PP-R deriven de la manera d’interpretar el perfet (haver abstracte) que incorporen. Aquests PPs —que mostrarem que són de naturalesa verbal i no pas adjectival— formen dues classes aspectuals. A més, comparem dues interpretacions del concepte ‘resultat’ i argumentem que fan prediccions diferents respecte a la gramàtica dels PPs: una es basa en la noció de ‘canvi d’estat’ i l’altra en el concepte de ‘perfectivitat’.A large part of the theoretical literature on Spanish Past Participles (PPrts) has focused on the Aktionsarten restrictions that these items exhibit in absolute clauses and verbal periphrases. This paper addresses the somehow neglected relationship that holds between grammatical and lexical aspect in the grammar or PPrts. Resultative PPrts (R-PPrts) are opposed to eventive PPrts (E-PPrts), following Kratzer, Embick, Gehrke, McIntyre, and other authors, and their meaning is shown to be a consequence of the interaction of voice and perfect features. Differences in the temporal interpretations of R-PPrts follow from the ways in which the perfect (abstract have) which they incorporate is interpreted. These PPrts —which are shown to be verbal, rather than adjectival categories— are further divided in two aspectual classes. In addition to this, two interpretations of the concept ‘result’ are compared, and argued to make different predictions as regards the grammar of PPrts: one is based on the notion ‘change of state’; the other one stands on the concept of ‘perfectivity’

On Resultative Past Participles in Spanish

A large part of the theoretical literature on Spanish Past Participles (PPrts) has focused on the Aktionsarten restrictions that these items exhibit in absolute clauses and verbal periphrases. This paper addresses the somehow neglected relationship that holds between grammatical and lexical aspect in the grammar or PPrts. Resultative PPrts (R-PPrts) are opposed to eventive PPrts (E-PPrts), following Kratzer, Embick, Gehrke, McIntyre, and other authors, and their meaning is shown to be a consequence of the interaction of voice and perfect features. Differences in the temporal interpretations of R-PPrts follow from the ways in which the perfect (abstract have) which they incorporate is interpreted. These PPrts -which are shown to be verbal, rather than adjectival categories- are further divided in two aspectual classes. In addition to this, two interpretations of the concept 'result' are compared, and argued to make different predictions as regards the grammar of PPrts: one is based on the notion 'change of state'; the other one stands on the concept of 'perfectivity'.Gran part de la bibliografia teòrica sobre els participis de passat (PPs) del castellà s'ha centrat en les restriccions d'Aktionsarten que tenen en les clàusules absolutes i en les perífrasis verbals. Aquest article s'ocupa de la relació, sovint deixada de banda, entre l'aspecte lèxic i l'aspecte gramatical en la gramàtica dels PPs. D'acord amb Kratzer, Embick, Gehrke, McIntyre i altres autors, distingim els PPs resultatius (PP-R) dels eventius (PP-E) i mostrem que el seu significat és una conseqüència de la interacció dels trets de veu i de perfet. Les diferències en les interpretacions temporals dels PP-R deriven de la manera d'interpretar el perfet (haver abstracte) que incorporen. Aquests PPs -que mostrarem que són de naturalesa verbal i no pas adjectival- formen dues classes aspectuals. A més, comparem dues interpretacions del concepte 'resultat' i argumentem que fan prediccions diferents respecte a la gramàtica dels PPs: una es basa en la noció de 'canvi d'estat' i l'altra en el concepte de 'perfectivitat'

Die Verarbeitung von Komplex-Anaphern : Neurolinguistische Untersuchungen zur kognitiven Textverstehenstheorie

Zugleich gedruckt erschienen im Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin: ISBN 978-3-7983-2323-0Die Arbeit thematisiert die Verarbeitung von Komplex-Anaphern. Dieser Anaphern-Typ hat einen größeren Textabschnitt, der einen oder mehrere Sätze umfasst, als Antezedenten (Antezedensfeld) und bezeichnet abstrakte Entitäten (z.B. Sachverhalte oder Propositionen). In der Verarbeitung unterscheiden sich Komplex-Anaphern dadurch von NP-Anaphern, dass sie einen aktiven Konstruktionsprozess abstrakter komplexer Referenten initiieren, den sogenannten Komplexbildungsprozess. Als Resultat dieses Prozesses wird ein neuer Referent in der mentalen Textweltrepräsentation (dem Textweltmodell) etabliert. In der Arbeit wird dieser Komplexbildungsprozess im Rahmen einer kognitiven Textverstehenstheorie beschrieben. Weiterhin wird über die EEG-Messung ereigniskorrelierter Potenziale untersucht, ob der Komplexbildungsprozess ein neurophysiologisches Korrelat aufweist

Temporal Relations in English and German Narrative Discourse

Institute for Communicating and Collaborative SystemsUnderstanding the temporal relations which hold between situations described in a narrative is a highly complex process. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the factors we have to take into account in order to determine the temporal coherence of a narrative discourse. In particular, aspectual information, tense, and world and context knowledge have to be considered and the interplay of all these factors must be specified. German is aspectually speaking an interesting language, because it does not possess a grammaticalised distinction between a perfective and imperfective aspect. In this thesis I examine the German aspectual system and the interaction of the factors which have an influence on the derived temporal relation for short discourse sequences. The analysis is carried out in two steps: First, the aspectual and temporal properties of German are investigated, following the cross-linguistic framework developed by Carlota S. Smith. An account for German is given which emphasises the properties which are peculiar to this language and explains why it has to be treated differently to, for example, English. The main result for the tense used in a narrative text—the Preterite—is that information regarding the end point of a described situation is based on our world knowledge and may be overridden provided context knowledge forces us to do this. Next, the more complex level of discourse is taken into account in order to derive the temporal relations which hold between the described situations. This investigation provides us with insights into the interaction of different knowledge sources like aspectual information as well as world and context knowledge. This investigation of German discourse sequences gives rise to the need for a time logic which is capable of expressing fine as well as coarse (or underspecified) temporal relations between situations. An account is presented to describe exhaustively all conceivable temporal relations within a computationally tractable reasoning system, based on the interval calculus by James Allen. However, in order to establish a coherent discourse for larger sequences, the hierarchical structure of a narrative has to be considered as well. I propose a Tree Description Grammar — a further development of Tree Adjoining Grammars — for parsing the given discourse structure, and stipulate discourse principles which give an explanation for the way a discourse should be processed. I furthermore discuss how a discourse grammar needs to distinguish between discourse structure and discourse processing. The latter term can be understood as navigating through a discourse tree, and reflects the process of how a discourse is comprehended. Finally, a small fragment of German is given which shows how the discourse grammar can be applied to short discourse sequences of four to seven sentences. The conclusion discusses the outcome of the analysis conducted in this thesis and proposes likely areas of future research

El aspecto en chino: Clases de evento y operadores aspectuales

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Departamento de Lingüística, Lenguas Modernas, Lógica y Fª de la Ciencia y Tª de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada. Fecha de lectura: 08-12-201