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The paper addresses the longstanding question of whether the copular verb "werden" ('become') is a transitional, i.e. telic, or a nontransitional, i.e. atelic, verb, or verb that is unspecified with regard to telicity. By means of standard tests and historical considerations, it is argued that the verb is telic and refers to accomplishment situations. Nevertheless, there are two types of copular "werden"-clauses with regard to which this view may seem questionable at first sight. First, some "werden"-clauses appear to refer to achievements. This, however, is not a matter concerning the semantics of werden. Rather, the crucial cases are accidentally instantaneous because their predicative complements are absolute predicates. Hence, they do not allow for extended transitions from one state to another. Second, some other "werden"-clauses, expecially those with comparative complements, sometimes appear to refer to processes. However "werden" combined with a comparatival adjective can be shown to be able to refer to clear accomplishment situations. The process-effect is due to a common phenomenon of reinterpretation that leads to iterative transitions between degrees.
In this paper I investigate the properties of the copula-like verb 'ficar' in Brazilian Portuguese using Pustejovsky's generative lexicon (GL). The verb 'ficar' can be translated as 'stay' or 'become', depending on its complement. With locatives, only the STAY reading is possible. With adjectival complements, both BECOME and STAY readings are possible. I propose that 'ficar' takes an eventuality as its complement and I argue that there is no need to create multiple lexical entries for it, since the readings are the result of the possible combinations between the transition denoted by 'ficar' and the properties of the stative complements.
I argue that the BECOME reading with adjectival predicates is the result of combining part of the qualia of the adjectival predicate with the TRANSITION of 'ficar'. The STAY readings of 'ficar'+adjective are the result of shadowing the transition. In the case of 'ficar'+locative, the BECOME reading is unavailable. Departing from the hypothesis that subevents have to be linked to arguments in order to be able to be modified by certain types of modifiers or be selected by certain types of heads, I argue that the transition, in the case of locative complements, is not associated to any argument because nothing in the qualia of the locative complement is compatible with a transition, given that there is not motion component in either 'ficar' or the locative. Unlinked to any argument, the TRANSITION can only be part of the 'constant' meaning of the verb, which explains why it is not available for modification.
This paper deals with a series of semantic contrasts between the copula "be" and the preposition "as", two functional elements that both head elementary predication structures. It will be argued that the meaning of "as" is a type lowering device shifting the meaning of its complement NP from generalized quantifier type to property type (where properties are conceived as relations between individuals and situations), while the copula "be" induces a type coercion from (partial) situations to (total) possible worlds. Paired with van der Sandt's 1992 theory of presupposition accommodation, these assumptions will account for the observed contrasts between "as" and "be".
In this study, I investigate the positions and interpretations available to 'manner' adverbs in English. My central claim, contra Wyner (1994, 1998), is that an association does exist between 'manner' adverb positions and interpretations, which is best characterized in terms of Peterson's (1997) distinction between 'restrictive' and 'non-restrictive' modification. I also claim, however, that the association in question is not as general as commonly claimed; and, in particular, does not apply directly to 'manner' adverbs in 'fronted' and 'parenthetical' positions, which require special syntactic description.
The paper investigates the issue whether the stage-level/individual level contrast introduced by Carlson 1977 requires the assumption of two homonymous copulas depending on the categorization of the predicative. We argue that instead of a uniform stage-level/individual level distinction we have to distinguish several similar but independent contrasts, none of which crucially depend on the semantics of the copula. In the second part of the paper, we concentrate on one group of phenomena-the distribution of weak subjects-and propose an explanation in terms of an interaction between topic/comment structure and aspectual properties of the predicate.
Specificity distinction
(2001)
This paper is concerned with semantic noun phrase typology, focusing on the question of how to draw fine-grained distinctions necessary for an accurate account of natural language phenomena. In the extensive literature on this topic, the most commonly encountered parameters of classification concern the semantic type of the denotation of the noun phrase, the familiarity or novelty of its referent, the quantificational/nonquantificational distinction (connected to the weak/strong dichotomy), as well as, more recently, the question of whether the noun phrase is choice-functional or not (see Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997, Kratzer 1998, Matthewson 1999). In the discussion that follows I will attempt to make the following general points: (i) phenomena involving the behavior of noun phrases both within and across languages point to the need of establishing further distinctions that are too fine-grained to be caught in the net of these typologies; (ii) some of the relevant distinctions can be captured in terms of conditions on assignment functions; (iii) distribution and scopal peculiarities of noun phrases may result from constraints they impose on the way variables they introduce are to be assigned values.
Section 2 reviews the typology of definite noun phrases introduced in Farkas 2000 and the way it provides support for the general points above. Section 3 examines some of the problems raised by recognizing the rich variety of 'indefinite' noun phrases found in natural language and by attempting to capture their distribution and interpretation. Common to the typologies discussed in the two sections is the issue of marking different types of variation in the interpretation of a noun phrase. In the light of this discussion, specificity turns out to be an epiphenomenon connected to a family of distinctions that are marked differently in different languages.
Rethinking the adjunct
(2000)
The purpose of the present paper is twofold: first, to show that, when defining the adjunct, it is necessary to distinguish in a strict modular way between the syntactic level and the lexico-semantic level. Thus, the adjunct is a syntactic category on a par with the specifier and the complement, whereas the argument belongs to the same set as does (among others) the modifier. The consequence of this distinction is that there is no direct one-to-one opposition between adjuncts and arguments. Nor is there any direct one-to one relation between adjuncts and modifiers.
The second and main purpose of the paper is to account for the well-known difference between the position of a specific set of modifiers (cause, time, place etc.) in, on the one hand, English and Swedish, on the other, German. In English and Swedish the default position of these modifiers is postverbal, whereas in German it is preverbal. Further, in English and Swedish, these modifiers occur in a mirror order compared with their German counterparts, an order which, from a semantic point of view, is not the expected one. I shall demonstrate that this difference is due to the different settings of the verbal head parameter, the former languages being VO-languages and the latter being OV -languages. I shall further argue that in English and Swedish these modifiers are base generated as adjuncts to an empty VP, which is a complement of the main verb of what I shall call the minimal VP (MVP), whereas in German they are adjuncts on top of the MVP. Finally, I shall argue that the postverbal modifiers move at the latest at LF to the top of the MVP, in order to take scope over it, the restriction being 'Shortest move'. The movement results in the correct scope order of the postverbal modifiers.
The proposed structure also accounts for the binding data, in particular for the binding of a specific Swedish possessive anaphor 'sin'. This pronoun, which may occur within the MVP, must not occur within the postverbal modifiers in the empty VP. This supports the assumption that there is a strict borderline between the MVP and the assumed empty VP. The account is also in accordance with the focus data, the specific set of modifiers being potential focus exponents in a wide focus reading in English and Swedish, but not in German.
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.
This contribution concerns the interaction of morphology, syntax and semantics. It treats German past participles and concentrates on their function as heads in attributive and adverbial modifier phrases. It is argued that participles have the same argument structure as the underlying verbs and can undergo passivization, perfectivization and conversion to adjectives. Since these three operations involve changes in the morphosyntactic categorization they are considered as zero affixation. Two affixless templates – without any categorical changes – convert participle constructions to modifiers relating to participants or to situations. These phrases do not have a syntactic position for the grammatical subject, an operator or an adverbial relator. The pertinent components are present only in the semantic structure. Two further templates serve the composition of participle constructions as modifiers with the modificandum. It is necessary to differentiate between modifiers which function as predicates and those which have the status of a propositional operator. In syntax, these different semantic functions correspond to different adjunct positions of the respective participle phrases.
Im vorliegenden Beitrag plädiere ich für ein Vorgehen, bei dem Kopulasätze generell als Beschreibungen von Situationen behandelt werden. Genauer nehme ich an, daß Sätze mit der Kopula 'sein' semantische Repräsentationen haben, die über eine darin vorkommende existenzquantifizierte Variable auf eine noch näher zu spezifizierende Situation referieren. Drei grundlegende Klassen von Fällen werden unterschieden: Erstens kann es sich bei der fraglichen Situation um einen durch das Prädikativ charakterisierten Zustand handeln, in dem sich das mit dem Subjektausdruck erfaßte Objekt befindet. Zweitens kann die Situation ein mit dem Subjektausdruck erfaßter Zustand sein, der über das Prädikativ eine zusätzliche Charakterisierung erhält. Und drittens kann die Situation auch ein Ereignis (im weiteren Sinne) sein, das nun entsprechend mit dem betreffenden Subjektausdruck erfaßt und durch das Prädikativ näher charakterisiert wird.