Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface: 52 (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, 52) - Hardcover

Tenny, Carol

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792328639 ISBN 13: 9780792328636

Publisher: Springer, 1994

Synopsis

All work is work in progress. The ideas developed in this work could be (and probably will be) developed further, revised, and expanded. But it was time to write them down and send them out. Some of these ideas about linking had their origins in my 1987 dissertation. However, this work has grown beyond the dissertation in a number of important ways. The most important of these advances lie in, first, articulating aspectual roles as linguistic objects over which lexical semantic phenomena can be stated, and over which linking generalizations are stated; second, recognizing that syntactic phenomena may be classified as to whether or not they are sensitive to the core event of event structure; and third, recognizing the modularity of aspectual and thematic/conceptual structure, and associating that modularity with a difference between language-specific and universal language generalizations. The three chapters of the book are organized around these ideas. I have tried to state these ideas as strong theses. Where they make strong predictions I have meant them to do so, as a probe for future research. I hope that other researchers will take up the challenge to investigate, test and develop these ideas across a wider realm of languages than I --as one person --can do.

About this title

Review

`The book ... should be read by anyone interested in the lexical valency of verbs and in the interaction of grammar, semantics and pragmatics.'
The Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics, 65/66 (1996)

Synopsis

This book presents a theory of the interface between lexical semantics and syntax, in which aspect plays a central role. The aspectual properties that figure in the linking between syntax and semantics are expressed through 'aspectual roles', assigned by a verb to its arguments. A number of lexical semantic phenomena can be expressed as operations over aspectual roles, and syntactic phenomena can be classified according to whether or not they are sensitive to the presence of aspectual roles. The theory is independent of any particular model of syntax (such as GB or LFG). This theory proposes a modular relationship between aspectual role information, and conceptual or thematic representations of lexical semantic information. Language-specific generalizations about linking are argued to be expressed in thematic or conceptual representations, while universal linking generalizations are expressed in aspectual representations. Consequently, this theory has implications for language acquisition.

A number of recent works have treated aspect of lexical semantics or argument structure in their own right, but none have focused on aspect as central in the relation between lexical semantics and syntactic argument structure.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792328639
• ISBN 13: 9780792328636
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256