Lecture 15

Ling 442

Exercises (part 1)

• Do the following examples receive “continuous state” interpretations?

1.Gemma has been a juggler since she was five.2.Jones has been a bank clerk since I saw him

last.

Exercises (part 2)• In the sentence pairs below, one version is

marked and awkward. Which one is awkward? How do you account for this?

1. They have lived here since 1985, but not recently.2. Since 1985 they have lived here, but not recently.3. Donna has had a job at Romero’s this year, but

not recently.4. This year Donna has had a job at Romero’s, but

not recently.

Exercises (3)

Tense logic analysis of past tense is to posit a past tense operator for past tense morpheme. E.g. The man left P[[the x: man (x)] leaves (x)] or [[the x: man (x)] P leaves (x)] Why is this analysis problematic for sentences like (1) and (2)?

1.All fugitives are now in jail.2.Every member of our investment club will buy

a house.

Reichenbach’s theory

• The simple past vs. the present perfect• A comma (,) indicates simultaneity.Mary left. R, E ___ SMary has left. E ___ R, S• A major point: The use of tense/aspect is

sensitive to the “salient time” (Reference time) at a particular point in a discourse.

Simple Past vs. Past progressive

Puzzle: What is the difference between (1) and (2) (in truth conditions)?

1.Mary smiled.2.Mary was smiling.

You need a discourse context to explain the difference between them. (There are not appreciable truth conditional differences between them.)

Simple Past vs. Past progressive

1. John opened his eyes. Mary smiled.2. John opened his eyes. Mary was smiling.• The difference has to do with whether the

second sentence moves the narrative time forward. An event sentence in the simple past tense moves the narrative time forward, whereas a past progressive sentence (or a state sentence in the simple past) does not (in most cases).

Exceptions

1. Jameson entered the room, shut the door carefully, and switched off the light. It was pitch dark around him, because the Venetian blinds were closed. (Hinrhces 1982)In a case like this, the sentence (It was pitch dark around him) is forced to receive an event-like (inchoative) interpretation.

2. John went over the day's perplexing events once more in his mind. Suddenly, he was fast asleep. (Dowty 1986)

Sequence of tenses

• English normally uses a past tense in a verb complement clause for a “simultaneous reading” when the matrix predicate is in the past tense. But Japanese does not follow this pattern.

1. John found out that Mary was pregnant.2. John-wa

John TOP [Mary-ga ninsinsiteiru] -to sit-ta.Mary NOM be-pregnant-PRES that learn-PAST

Be V-ing vs. –te iru (Japanese)English achievements do occur in the progressive form,

but the “target state” is located in the future.1. The tree is falling over. (The tree has not fallen over

yet.)Japanaese “progressive/resultant” morpheme –te iru

indicates a resultant state when it is suffixed to an achievement-like predicate

2. Ki -ga taore-te i -ru.tree-NOM fall -PROG(?)-PRES‘A tree is on the ground. (Presumably, it has fallen over.)’

Cross-linguistic semantics

• Perhaps all languages share the same semantic base (an ontology) but syntactic/morphological differences produce different constructions/strategies for conveying the “same thought”

• Or perhaps languages may differ with respect to the semantic base already. They may use different “semantic entities” for conceptualizing meanings.

• Whatever the case may be, UG is incomplete without a proper study of semantics (I think).