Aspectual Classes and Scales of Change John Beavers The University of Texas at Austin
[email protected] Abstract In this paper I outline a theory of aspectual classes based on theories of scalar change (Hay et al. 1999, Kennedy and Levin 2008). Standard models of aspectual classes focus on event decompositional or featural distinctions between predicates. However, such classifications often over- or undergenerate, and also do not necessarily capture the temporal properties upon which aspectual classifications are usually based. I show that a predictive model of aspectual classes arises from two independently motivated properties of scale arguments: (a) how specific the predicate is about the final state of the patient on the scale (Beavers 2006), and (b) the mereological complexity of the scale (Beavers 2008). The resultant classification accommodates the standard Vendler dynamic classes, plus additional classes that have proved difficult for previous approaches, and also makes predictions about how argument realization and aspectual classes are related.
1. Introduction Aspectual classes have been an important part of modern work in lexical semantics since at least Vendler (1957), with most researchers providing analyses for (or arguing against) the following four aspectual classes: (1)
a. States: love someone, know the answer, hear music b. Activities: run (around), play in the garden, push a cart c. Achievements: notice a painting, recognize a friend, die d. Accomplishments: build a house, eat a pizza, paint a barn red
These classes are usually defined, or at least diagnosed, by their temporal properties. For example, as Rothstein (2004: 6–14) discusses, two properties that distinguish the four classes in (1) are telicity – indicating an inherent endpoint to the event – and what Landman (1992: 22–24) refers to as having stages, i.e. describing events that have subevents that lead directly to other subevents. Temporal properties such as these can be probed for by applying various aspectual diagnostics. For example, telic predicates are generally more acceptable with in an hour than for an hour modifiers, while atelic predicates have the opposite pattern (Dowty 1979: 56–58). On this diagnostic, states and activities pattern together as atelic, while accomplishments and achievements are telic, as in (2). (2)
a. John knew the answer for/??in an hour. 1
(State, atelic)
b. John ran around for/??in an hour. c. John noticed the error in/?for two minutes. d. John built the shelves in/?for two hours.
(Activity, atelic) (Achievement, telic) (Accomplishment, telic)
Having stages is diagnosed by acceptability in the progressive. In standard American English accomplishments and activities pattern together as acceptable in the progressive, while states and achievements are not, as in (3) (though some achievements are better than others; see Rothstein 2004: 36–58): (3)
a. #John is knowing the answer.
(State, no stages)
b. John is running around.
(Activity, stages)
c. #John is noticing the error.
(Achievement, no stages)
d. John is building the shelves.
(Accomplishment, stages)
These two diagnostics cross-cut one another, so that one could define the classes in (1) via two binary features, e.g. [±stages,±telic]. However, as Rothstein also notes, such a classification is inherently unexplanatory inasmuch as it does not explain why different predicates have the temporal properties they do. Intuitively, achievements and accomplishments are telic because they specify particular result states that characterize the end of the event, unlike states and activities. Similarly, subevents of states are too homogeneous to constitute separate stages, and achievements are punctual and thus have no subevents at all. A more explanatory analysis should take such factors into account. Furthermore, a classification based on binary features is problematic in light of the fact that there are additional classes beyond Vendler’s four, including semelfactives (Smith 1991: 29–30 and Beavers 2008) and degree achievements (Dowty 1979: 88–90 and Hay et al. 1999) (see also Rothstein 2008): (4)
a. Semelfactive: John kicked the car (once/repeatedly). b. Degree achievement: John cooled the soup.
Semelfactives are like achievements in that they are punctual by default, but unlike achievements allow iterative readings. Degree achievements are like activities in that they are atelic, but they are also like accomplishments in that they entail change. If we simply posit n binary features, we expect 2n classes; six classes would involve additional constraints. An alternative analysis is that aspectual classes derive from the types of events different predicates describe, commonly analyzed via lexical event decompositions, usually based on Dowty (1979: Ch.2) (though Dowty revised his own analysis in his third chapter). An example is given in (5), taken from Rappaport Hovav and Levin (1998: 108), where a state is the predication of a state over an individual, 2
an activity is the predication of an action, an achievement is the coming about of a state, and an accomplishment is an action that causes a state to come about. (5)
a. States: [ x < STATE > ] b. Activities: [ x ACT ] c. Achievements: [ BECOME [ x < STATE > ] ] d. Accomplishments: [ [ y ACT ] CAUSE [ BECOME [ x < STATE > ] ] ]
Other classes could be defined by other decompositions and/or event types. However, while event types and subevental structure are undoubtedly necessary for aspectual classification, they alone are not sufficient to define an aspectual classification that accounts for the temporal properties in (2) and (3). For example, BECOME events may or may not have stages and may or may not give rise to telicity, as in (6) and (7) respectively (though the degree achievement in (7b) can also be telic in some contexts). (6)
a. #The vase is breaking in an instant.
(BECOME without stages)
b. The water is evaporating slowly. (7)
(BECOME with stages)
a. The vase broke in/?for five minutes.
(Telic BECOME)
b. The vase cooled for/in five minutes.
(Atelic BECOME)
CAUSE and ACT are similar. Thus standard subevent types alone do not define aspectual classes, since they do not determine the relevant diagnostic temporal properties (see also Rappaport Hovav 2008). But then what does? Since at least Verkuyl (1972) it has been known that temporal properties also reflect how certain arguments are expressed in the clause, usually referred to as “incremental themes” (following Dowty 1991: 567–568). A standard example are patient objects of consumption verbs. When the object is realized by a DP with quantized reference (no subpart of an entity in its denotation is also in its denotation) the predicate is telic, otherwise it is atelic: (8)
a. Mary drank a glass of wine in/?for an hour. b. Mary drank wine for/??in an hour.
The standard analysis is that the event is related to the object homomorphically so that the endpoint of the event is known only if the quantity of the object is known. Intuitively, if incremental themes figure into the calculation of the temporal properties that define aspectual classes, we might expect our definitions of aspectual classes to reference them either directly or indirectly.
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In this paper, I propose such an analysis based on work on scalar change (Hay et al. 1999, Wechsler 2005, Beavers 2006, 2008, to appear, Kennedy and Levin 2008, Rappaport Hovav 2008), where change is analyzed as some theme transitioning to a new value along a separate property scale, which is an incremental theme. I show that temporal facts such as those in (2) and (3) arise from cross-classifying predicates by two independently motivated properties of the scale: (9)
a. The specificity of the endpoint along the scale b. The mereological complexity of the scale
I outline a version of the scalar analysis in Section 2, and discuss endpoints and mereological complexity of scales in Section 3. I then show in Section 4 that the aspectual classes in (1b-d) plus those in (4) arise from classifying predicates by the two factors in (9). In Section 5 I further motivate this proposal by showing that it makes interesting predictions about certain argument realization facts that also correlate with the properties in (9). I conclude in Section 6. For purposes of this paper I ignore states and focus solely on dynamic predicates, and thus having stages reduces to durativity. I discuss diagnostics for this in Section 3.2. 2. Scales of change as incremental themes It is often assumed that there are three types of incremental themes (see Tenny 1994: 15–18). For creation/consumption predicates as in (10a), the patient is the incremental theme: the predicate is telic only if the patient DP has quantized reference. For motion predicates as in (10b), the path is the incremental theme, so that the predicate is telic only if it indicates an explicit goal. In (10c), for changeof-state predicates a property of the patient is the incremental theme, so that the predicate is telic only if the result state is fully specified. (10)
a. John ate (the) sandwiches. b. John walked (to the store). c. John scrubbed the sink (clean).
The intuition is that the incremental theme homomorphically “measures out” the event: the event progresses incrementally through parts of the incremental theme, culminating at its end, if known (Verkuyl 1972, Dowty 1991, Tenny 1994, Krifka 1989, 1998, Beavers 2009b). Krifka (1998) in particular suggests that different sorts of incremental themes may have different homomorphic relationships. Work on scalar change has unified these apparently distinct types of incremental themes under a single rubric. On this approach, all entities have properties – volume, location, color, cleanliness, etc. – which form scales along which they can transition. For example, for (11) there is a scale hℜ, >,WARMTHi consisting 4
of a property dimension (WARMTH), a set of values along that dimension (the real numbers ℜ), and an ordering of those values (>) (following Hay et al. 1999 and Kennedy and McNally 2005). The predicate describes a transition of the theme from some w ∈ ℜ in its WARMTH to w′ ∈ ℜ, where w′ > w. (11)
The soup warmed.
Thus change is inherently a relationship between three entities: the event, a scale that defines the change, and a theme that undergoes it (see Beavers to appear). Hay et al. (1999) first suggested that we can extend this analysis to all of (10), by positing that each predicate has a theme and a scale, and differ only in what the scale is. For change-of-state the scale is a property scale, for motion it is a path leading to the goal, and for creation/consumption it is the physical extent of the theme. I adopt the version of this analysis developed in Beavers (2008, to appear), building on Krifka (1998: 222–230).1 On this approach, a scale hR, >, δi of values R on dimension δ ordered by relation > is a mereologically complex “path” s in set PH (the set of connected, directed paths), where:2 (12)
a. For each ri ∈ R (1 ≤ i ≤ n) there is a unique subpart si of s (si < s); P b. The scale s is the join of all such si (s = ni=1 si ); c. If ri > rj then sj precedes si on s (sj ≪H si )
Thus a scale here is a directed path leading from a source state to a final state through all successive states in between.3 Davidsonian representations for predicates such as those in (10) are given in (13), where the first conjunct indicates the type of event and its participants, the second the initial state or location of the theme on s, and the third its final state on s. (13)
a. John walked from the store to the cafe. ∃e∃s[walk′ (j, s, e) ∧ SOU RCE(s, store, e) ∧ GOAL(s, cafe, e)] b. John warmed the pie from 0◦ to 100◦ . ∃e∃s[warm′ (j, p, s, e) ∧ SOU RCE(s, 0◦ , e) ∧ GOAL(s, 100◦ , e)] c. John ate the apple. ∃e∃s[eat′ (j, a, s, e) ∧ SOU RCE(s, whole, e) ∧ GOAL(s, 0, e)]
However, although source states are important for understanding the meaning of a predicate of change, I focus here only on result states, and thus for convenience I define a predicate result′ which indicates a transition on scale s from a contextually defined source state b to a final state g. (14)
∀s∀g∀e[result′ (s, g, e) ↔ [SOU RCE(s, b, e) ∧ GOAL(s, g, e)]]
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To capture the incremental theme effects in (10), Beavers adopts the analysis of Krifka (1998: 224, (69)), wherein change predicates relate the events they describe to the scales they select in terms of a single mereological homomorphic θ-relation in (15), where the event is measured out by adjacent transitions along the scale. (15)
Strict Movement Relation (SMR): each unique part of e corresponds to a unique part of s and vice versa; temporal adjacency in e corresponds to spatial/scalar adjacency in s.
Thus the event is mapped isomorphically to the scale in a way that preserves number of subparts and adjacency, so that the event begins with the theme at the source state, and as the event progresses temporally the patient transitions along the scale through successive, adjacent values until the event ends at the goal state.4 To capture the incremental theme effects we also need a definition of telicity. Following Krifka (1989: 90), I define telicity as in (16), where a predicate over events is telic iff it has quantized reference, i.e. for no event it describes does it describe any subevent of that event (where e′
