{"title":"The Semantic Representation of Causation and Agentivity","authors":"R. Thomason","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.14","url":null,"abstract":"In accounting for causativity and related constructions, it was popular at first to avoid appealing to events and event structure. But internal problems with this conservative approach motivate the introduction of eventualities into the semantic apparatus. Terence Parsons gets the credit for seeing this. His ideas can serve as the basis of a theory that begins to do justice to how causal notions are incorporated in natural language morphology. But work remains to be done in refining Parsons’ logical primitives, in relating the semantic picture to work in the metaphysics of causation, and in developing the causal picture in relation to other ideas about eventualities, such as the work discussed in this volume.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131498862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Neurophysiology of Event Processing in Language and Visual Events","authors":"Neil Cohn, M. Paczynski","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.26","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.26","url":null,"abstract":"Events are a fundamental part of all actions that we undertake, discuss, and view. This chapter reviews the growing cognitive neuroscience literature exploring the structure and processing of tacit event knowledge. Overall, this work implies an ongoing process of building up semantic associations relative to their preceding context, which are constrained by active prediction of upcoming content. In turn, reanalysis mechanisms are initiated when the overall structure of the event is violated and/or does not conform to predictions set up by the context. Event cognition thus emerges from a network of conceptual information links with event-specific selectional restrictions and hierarchical organization. Altogether, this literature suggests that the brain uses overlapping mechanisms of comprehension to rapidly process events in both language and visual events.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129275124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Event Kinds","authors":"B. Gehrke","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.29","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides an overview of different empirical domains for which it has been argued to be useful to add event kinds (or types) to the ontology, in addition to event tokens. Direct parallels are drawn to the motivation that have led to positing kinds in the nominal domain, such as the idea that elements like so (English such) is a kind anaphora and that modification derives subkinds, which is related to the general hierarchical organization of kinds found in both domains, or the observation that modified event kinds have to be well-established, a constraint that is also found with kind reference by singular definite noun phrases.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122135997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Semantic Domains for Syntactic Word-Building","authors":"Lisa Levinson","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.31","url":null,"abstract":"Event structure often appears to co-vary with verbal morphology and VP syntax. Thus theories of event structure interact with theories of the organization of the grammar. Some theories have posited that syntactic heads associated with the introduction of events are responsible for ‘closing off’ a domain of idiomatic interpretation, both below and above the word level. The traditional boundary between ‘idiosyncratic’ words and ‘generated’ sentences breaks down when one considers idiosyncrasy at the phrasal level such as idioms, on the one hand, and structure and compositional meaning within words, such as derivational morphology, on the other. This chapter introduces several current approaches to syntactic word-building, and then reviews different proposals for the semantic interpretation of syntactically-composed words. This background will be used to explore the different domains that have been put forth as delimiting the site for special interpretations, within which it is predicted we will find Apparent Compositionality Exceptions.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129834636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Events and States","authors":"Claudia Maienborn","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.6","url":null,"abstract":"Hidden event arguments, as introduced by Davidson (1967), have proven to be of significant benefit in explaining numerous combinatorial and inferential properties of natural language expressions, such that they show up virtually everywhere in present-day assumptions about linguistic structure. The chapter reviews current assumptions concerning the ontological properties of events and states and evaluates different approaches to a narrow or broad understanding of Davidsonian eventualities. A closer look into a variety of stative expressions reveals substantial differences with respect to a series of linguistic diagnostics that point towards deeper ontological differences. Acknowledging these differences leads to a differentiation of the cover notion of states into three separate ontological categories: D-states, K-states, and tropes. Once these three stative categories are disentangled and receive their proper place in the ontological universe, this not only allows the observed linguistic behavior to be accounted for, but it also sharpens our understanding of Davidsonian eventualities.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130925127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Force Dynamics","authors":"B. Copley","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.7","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the semantics of force dynamics, from its cognitive linguistic origins to recent formal approaches. Force dynamics proves to be a fruitful addition to the ontology, allowing natural representations of the distinction between energy and change, interactions within and between events, and ceteris paribus effects, among other phenomena. This makes force dynamics useful, perhaps even indispensable, for a full understanding of event structure and related domains such as aspect, modality, and inference. A debate is just getting underway on how to formally represent forces in ways that are faithful to morphosyntax, compositional semantics, and conceptual plausibility. It may be that lexical-conceptual representations of forces differ from functional (grammaticalized) representations of forces.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129449567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nominals and Event Structure","authors":"Friederike Moltmann","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.21","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses three semantic approaches to event nominalizations: The Davidsonian, the Kimian, and the truthmaker-based approach. It argues that a combination of the three approaches is required for the semantics of the full range of event and state nominalizations as well as the related phenomenon of adverbial modification. The chapter also presents data regarding a distinction between two sorts of nominalizations of psychological and illocutionary verbs that challenge the received view of the identity of the events described by verbs and by (non-gerundive) deverbal nominalizations. These data bear on a distinction between ‘actions’ and ‘products’ introduced by the Polish philosopher Twardowski.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115785272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Secondary Predication","authors":"T. Rapoport","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.19","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the thematic and aspectual properties of two constructions of secondary predication, resultatives and depictives. The thematic and aspectual constraints on the two types of secondary predicate and their hosts are detailed, as are the semantic constraints on the relation between the main verb and each of the secondary predicate types and the structural representation of these relations. The final sections focus on the issue of the argument or adjunct status of the different types of depictive and resultative (such as true versus false resultative) predicates, the role of each type in the event structure representation, and the possibility of distinguishing between secondary predicates and certain adverbial types. As noted by the studies reviewed in this chapter, an examination of secondary predicate constructions sheds light on properties of verb and adjective types, the characterization of argument versus adjunct, and the thematic and aspectual underpinnings of event structure.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125160070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thematic Roles and Events","authors":"Nikolas Gisborne, J. Donaldson","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.30","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780199685318.013.30","url":null,"abstract":"Thematic roles have been put to various uses, including the definition of events. But there is another way of understanding this relationship: it might be the events that define the thematic roles they are associated with. We argue in favour of this approach with the complication that Talmy’s force dynamic roles should be seen as prior to both events and traditional roles. Force dynamic roles differ from traditional roles in that their number is limited to two, they are not found only within word meanings, and they can link to participants outside the sentence. We examine evidence that they play a role in both causation and modality, and provide an argument that while ditransitives involve a result or purpose relation, they should not be analysed as prototypically causative, as they involve variable force-dynamic transfer. The conclusion is that not only do events cause events, but also participants act on participants.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115444454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coherence Relations","authors":"A. Kehler","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.27","url":null,"abstract":"Mentation does not proceed via the pursuit of random paths of thought, but instead by way of connections among ideas that are guided by certain types of associative principles. Since a primary function of language is to evoke thoughts in the minds of interlocutors, it is unsurprising that we would find evidence that these associative principles are at play in the manner in which language is structured and interpreted. This chapter provides a brief survey into some of the respects in which this is the case at the discourse and lexical levels. The data argue for a rich notion of event structure that makes crucial reference to different types of association, and illustrate how the importance of event structure in linguistic theory goes beyond merely accounting for the representation of events and the semantics of the words used to express them.","PeriodicalId":137823,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Event Structure","volume":"113 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115565633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}