Abstract
In this paper I argue for two distinct sources of scalarity within the verb phrase, focusing specifically on VPs headed by incremental theme verbs. First, there is a quantity scale associated with the presence of an incremental theme argument. The scale structure of the quantity scale is crucially related to the part structure of the theme argument, and is the source of observed telicity effects. I argue that the quantity scale is not lexically encoded in the verb, but is derived from the part structure of the nominal argument via a functional morpheme. This morpheme is often silent in English, but in certain cases has an overt realization as partitive of. Second, there is a quality, or prototypicality, scale associated with the lexical entry of the verb itself. This type of scale is related to the different dimensions upon which events are classified by the verbs that name them. I argue that two distinct readings of the the proportional modifier half in English provide evidence for these two sources of scalarity within VP. The analysis is couched within a framework for aspectual composition that adopts the formal properties of scales and degrees that have become standard in recent work on gradable predicates.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For the purposes of this paper I focus on incremental theme verbs, though many of the behaviors discussed here are also exhibited by change of state verbs. As noted by Tenny (2000), the distinction between incremental theme verbs and change of state verbs can sometimes be blurry, as in the case of verbs like fill or melt.
- 2.
A reviewer correctly points out that (3) also displays a distributive reading, which is true if half of every dish is washed. This amounts to a sub-case of the eventive reading, since it is still the quantity of dishes (or rather the quantity of surface area of each dish) that is at issue.
- 3.
Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080723194852AAdXOe8; retrieved March 1, 2010; emphasis added.
- 4.
Thanks to Anita Mittwoch for pointing out this minimal pair to me.
- 5.
Throughout this paper, in addition to the standard types e for individuals and t for truth values, IÂ also use d for the type of degrees and s for the type of events.
- 6.
Caudal and Nicolas (2005) also formalize a degree-based analysis of aspectual composition, but appear to be non-committal as to where the degree argument comes from, i.e., whether it is associated with the verb from the lexicon or whether it is the result of a type-shifting mechanism.
- 7.
The argumentation in this section is an expanded version of that found in Bochnak (2010b).
- 8.
- 9.
Such an account is similar in spirit to the one presented in Stensrud (2009), whereby telicity is derived by measure-of-change function embedded within the VP.
- 10.
This is a slight modification of the analysis of μ in Bochnak (2010b).
- 11.
As for the distributive reading mentioned above, I tentatively propose that some form of a generalized distributivity operator may apply to μ (see Lasersohn, 1998). The application of such an operator would be vacuous in the case where the theme is a singular individual, but would result in a distributive reading over a plural theme argument as in (3).
- 12.
Once again, much of this argumentation is borrowed from Bochnak (2010b).
- 13.
Since μ takes as its first argument an individual of type e, this analysis assumes that bare nominals as in (31b) must be kind-denoting individuals (see Chierchia, 1998).
- 14.
- 15.
A reviewer wonders whether an agent must have control over the event in order to license the evaluative reading. While it is true that the evaluative reading for half seems marginal with unaccusative verbs like fall or die, which do not select an agent argument, the examples in (33) don’t seem to involve agent control and yet still allow the evaluative reading of half.
- 16.
Tenny (2000) finds these uses of evaluative half to be acceptable, though many speakers I have consulted with find them odd. An evaluative-like reading with these verbs seems more natural with the modifier sort of.
- 17.
A reviewer points out that (35a) accepts adverbial modification by powerfully, which suggests that the verb may be associated with an intensity scale, thereby undermining the idea that such verbs lack a richness of dimensions to license the evaluative reading of half. However, the use of adverbs like powerfully do not indicate that the verb lexicalizes an intensity scale no more than other modifiers that describe manner such as with both hands or by blowing really hard indicate that the verb lexicalizes a number-of-hands-used scale or an amount-of-blowing scale. Correspondingly, these verbs are not classified as manner verbs, meaning that they do not involve complex changes as argued by Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010).
- 18.
Thanks to a reviewer for pointing out this contrast, and to Eva Csipak for providing judgements on the sentences in (42).
References
Beavers, John. 2008. Scalar complexity and the structure of events. In Event structures in linguistic form and interpretation, eds. Johannes Döling, Tatjana Heyde-Zybatow, and Martin Schäfer, 245–265. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bochnak, M. Ryan. 2010a. Promiscuous modification and cross-categorial scale structure. In Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 35, eds. Iksoo Kwon, Hannah Pritchett, and Justin Spence, 25–36. Berkeley: BLS.
Bochnak, M. Ryan. 2010b. Quantity and gradability across categories. In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XX, eds. Nan Li, and David Lutz, 251–268. Ithaca: CLC Publications.
Caudal, Patrick, and David Nicolas. 2005. Types of degrees and types of event structures. In Event arguments: foundations and applications, eds. Claudia Maienborn, and Angelika Wöllenstein. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. Reference to kinds across languages. Natural Language Semantics 6:339–405.
Cruse, Allan. 1986. Lexical semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dowty, David. 1991. Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67(3):547–619.
Filip, Hana. 2008. Events and maximalization. In Theoretic and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect, ed. Susan Rothstein, 217–256. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gawron, Jean Mark. 2007. Differentiating mereological and degree-based approaches to aspect. Paper presented at workshop on the syntax and semantics of measurability, University of Tromsø.
Ghomeshi, Jila, Ray Jackendoff, Nicole Rosen, and Kevin Russell. 2004. Constrastive focus reduplication in English (the salad-salad paper). Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22:307–357.
Hay, Jennifer, Christopher Kennedy, and Beth Levin. 1999. Scalar structure underlies telicity in ‘degree achievements’. In Proceedings of semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) IX, eds. Tanya Matthews, and Devon Strolovitch, 127–144. Ithaca: CLC Publications.
Horn, Laurence. 1993. Economy and redundancy in a dualistic model of natural language. In Yearbook of the linguistic association of Finland, eds. Susanna Shore, and Maria Vilkuna, 31–72. Helsinki: SKY.
Kennedy, Christopher. 2007. Vagueness and grammar: the semantics of relative and absolute gradable adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy 30(1):1–45.
Kennedy, Christopher, and Beth Levin. 2008. Measure of change: the adjectival core of degree achievements. In Adjectives and adverbs: syntax, semantics and discourse, eds. Louise McNally, and Christopher Kennedy. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Kennedy, Christopher, and Louise McNally. 2005. Scale structure, degree modification and the semantics of gradable predicates. Language 81(2):345–381.
Kennedy, Christopher, and Louise McNally. 2010. Color, context and compositionality. Synthese 174(1):79–98.
Kratzer, Angelika. 1996. Severing the external argument from its verb. In Phrase structure and the lexicon, eds. Johan Rooryck, and Laurie Ann Zaring, 109–137. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Kratzer, Angelika. 2003. The event argument. Ms. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.
Krifka, Manfred. 1989. Nominal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event semantics. In Semantics and contextual expression, eds. Renate Bartsch, Johann van Benthem, and Peter van Emde Boas, 75–115. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Krifka, Manfred. 1992. Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In Lexical matters, eds. Ivan Sag, and Anna Szabolsci, 29–53. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Krifka, Manfred. 1998. The origins of telicity. In Events and grammar, ed. Susan Rothstein, 197–235. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Ladusaw, William. 1982. Semantic constraints on the English partitive construction. In Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 1, 231–242. Stanford: Stanford University.
Lasersohn, Peter. 1998. Generalized distributivity operators. Linguistics and Philosophy 21:83–93.
Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: at the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Mittwoch, Anita. 1982. On the difference between eating and eating something: activities versus accomplishments. Linguistic Inquiry 13(1):113–122.
Moltmann, Friederike. 1997. Parts and wholes in semantics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Piñón, Christopher. 2000. Happening gradually. In Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 26. Berkeley: BLS.
Piñón, Christopher. 2005. Adverbs of completion in an event semantics. In Perspectives on aspect, eds. Henk J. Verkuyl, Henriëtte de Swart, and Angeliek van Hout, 149–166. Dordrecht: Springer.
Piñón, Christopher. 2008. Aspectual composition with degrees. In Adjectives and adverbs: syntax, semantics and discourse, eds. Louise McNally, and Christopher Kennedy, 183–219. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 2008. Lexicalized meaning and the internal temporal structure of events. In Theoretic and crosslinguistic approaches to the semantics of aspect, ed. Susan Rothstein, 13–42. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rappaport Hovav, Malka, and Beth Levin. 2010. Reflections on manner/result complementarity. In Syntax, lexical semantics and event structure, eds. Edit Doron, Malka Rappaport Hovav, and Ivy Sichel, 21–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rotstein, Carmen, and Yoad Winter. 2004. Total adjectives vs. partial adjectives: scale structure and higher-order modifiers. Natural Language Semantics 12:259–288.
Stensrud, Kjersti. 2009. Aspects of event composition in English and Norwegian. Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago.
Tenny, Carol. 1994. Aspectual roles and the syntax-semantics interface. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Tenny, Carol. 2000. Core events and adverbial modification. In Events as grammatical objects, eds. Carol Tenny, and James Pustejovsky, 285–334. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Wechsler, Stephen. 2005. Resultatives under the ‘event-argument homomorphism’ model of telicity. In The syntax of aspect, eds. Nomi Erteschik-Shir, and Tova Rapoport, 255–273. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Alexander. 2009. Themes, cumulativity and resultatives: comments on Kratzer 2003. Linguistic Inquiry 40(4):686–700.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank Chris Kennedy for detailed and thought-provoking discussions on this topic over the past months. This work has also greatly benefited from discussions with Peter Alrenga, Itamar Francez, Anastasia Giannakidou and Beth Levin, as well as audiences at the 35th Berkeley Linguistics Society Meeting, Semantics Workshop of the American Midwest and Prairies 2009 in Chicago, the University of Göttingen, SALT XX in Vancouver, and the Workshop on Subatomic Semantics of Event Predicates in Barcelona. All remaining errors and oversights are my responsibility.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bochnak, M.R. (2013). Two Sources of Scalarity Within the Verb Phrase. In: Arsenijević, B., Gehrke, B., MarÃn, R. (eds) Studies in the Composition and Decomposition of Event Predicates. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 93. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5983-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5983-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5982-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5983-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)