Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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70 Chapter 3. Aspect in formal semantics(93) a. #John has played the sonata.b. John has gone to the pub.A final remark on aspectual classifications. In most classifications the classof telic predicates (predicates with which a poststate is associated) and theclass of bounded predicates (predicates that introduce inherent boundaries foreventualities) are considered to be co-extensive. Egg (1994, 1995) argues thatin fact they are not: the whole class of bounded predicates is compatible withfor-adverbials, but only some of them (the telic ones) combine readily withthe perfect. It is important to note that Egg uses the word boundedness forwhat Krifka calls telicity. As I said, I will follow Egg’s terminology, and fromnow on use boundedness even in the context of Krifka’s account.3.3.2 Moens and Steedman’s Aspectual NetworkMoens and Steedman (Moens 1987, Moens and Steedman 1986, 1988) proposean aspectual classification which they consider to be flexible rather than fixed,allowing transitions between aspectual classes. The classes and the transitionsconstitute an Aspectual Network, cf. Figure 3.7, where the permissible shiftsare indicated with arcs.+punctualE V E N T S−punctualS T A T E S+consequence−consequenceCULMINATIONPOINT+prep. processiteration−culminative −eventCULMINATEDPROCESS+culminativeeventPROCESSin progressCONSEQUENTSTATEPROGRESSIVESTATELEXICALSTATEHABITUALSTATEFigure 3.7: Moens and Steedman’s Aspectual NetworkSome of these transitions are the result of input restrictions of temporaladverbials or grammatical aspects. Moens and Steedman were the first to usetheir analysis the perfect is restricted to culminated process predicates, that is punctualtelic predicates.
3.3 Aspectual coercion 71the term coercion for this phenomenon.Moens and Steedman relate the aspectual classes and the shifts betweenthem to a complex event structure which they call a nucleus, consisting of apreparatory process, a culmination point, and a consequent state.preparatory processconsequent stateculmination pointFigure 3.8: Nucleus (Moens and Steedman 1988:13)Predicates of different aspectual classes are are interpreted as describingeventualities that consist of different parts of nuclei: culminated process predicatesrefer to the whole nucleus, process predicates to the preparatory process,culmination predicates to the combination of culmination point and consequentstate, and points to the culmination point only (Moens 1987:65). Aspectualtransitions are then automatically related to the nucleus as well: they oftenconsist of adding or removing part of the nucleus structure.Let’s consider some examples. According to Moens and Steedman’s analysis,the progressive requires process predicates. Thus (94a) is fine, but (94b)and (94c) involve coercion.(94) a. Harry was running.b. #Harry was hiccupping.c. #Harry was reaching the top.Harry hiccup is a point predicate. As we can see in Figure 3.7 a point predicatecan be reinterpreted as a process predicate by giving it an iterative interpretation.Only then the selectional restrictions of the progressive operator arefulfilled. The resulting interpretation is that an iteration of hiccupping eventualitiesby John was in progress.Harry reach the top is a culmination predicate. We can read off the figurethat there is no direct path through the network from culmination predicatesto process predicates. Instead there are two paths that both consist of twosteps. The most plausible path is the one in which the culmination predicateis first turned into a culminated process by adding a preparatory process, andthen the culminated process predicate is turned into a process predicate by‘stripping off’ the culmination point. Thus, (94c) describes the preparatoryprocess of John reaching the top as going on. A reinterpretation path via thepoint class is in principle possible too, although it is not likely as it wouldinvolve an iterative eventuality of reaching the top.This last example illustrates the prominent role of world knowledge inreinterpretation phenomena. A mismatch in aspectual class indicates that
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Aspect in Ancient GreekA semantic a
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viNick Asher, David Beaver, the lat
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Contentsix8 Conclusions and discuss
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2 Chapter 1. Introductiongroundbrea
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4 Chapter 1. Introduction(4) µετ
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6 Chapter 1. Introductionimperfecti
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1.3 Organisation of the thesis 9In
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Chapter 2The interpretations of aor
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2.3 Additional interpretations of t
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120 Chapter 4. An analysis of aoris
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122 Chapter 5. Aspect and performat
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134 Chapter 6. The temporal structu
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158 Chapter 7. Comparison to theori
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172 Chapter 8. Conclusions and disc
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178 Appendix A: The language of Com
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192 Appendix B: Examples spelled ou
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206 Appendix C: List of abbreviatio
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208 Appendix C: List of abbreviatio
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210 References(Eds.), Cross-linguis
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212 ReferencesGrice, P. (1975). Log
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214 ReferencesLemmon, E. J. (1962).
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216 Referencesvan der Sandt, R. (19
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218 References
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220 Samenvatting (Summary in Dutch)
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222 Samenvatting (Summary in Dutch)
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Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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