EVENT RELATIONS AND EVENT STRUCTURE

I begin with Pustejovsky’s (1989b, 1991a, 1995 and 2005) account of how

participants in an event predicate are mapped to argument positions. I then show how the mappings can be represented in a constraint based grammar like the Matrix grammar. Pustejovsky (1991a) deviates from the view of an eventuality as being a single, existentially quantified event variable. Based on the ability of grammatical phenomena to make reference to the internal structure of an event, he assumes a Sub- eventual analysis for predicates. He distinguishes between three types of basic eventualities states, processes and transitions. Transitions are further divided into two groups: accomplishments and achievements. His classification is based on the

assumption of sub eventual templates to which generative rules of event composition may apply in order to generate complex events (see section 3.2.2). Below are

Eventuality

Event State

(mòsé 'beautiful', rèn 'know')

No transition Transition

duration

No duration duration Activities

(rhùlé 'run') Achievements (sè 'arrive', wù 'die' , tòló ohuén 'cough'

Accomplishments

lè néné èvbàré 'cook the food', rrì ízè 'eat the rice'

(93) Mary ran (process).

(94) The door is closed (state).

(95) The door closed (achievement).

(96) John closed the door (accomplishment (transitive)).

(97) John gave Mary a book (accomplishment (ditransitive)).

Pustejovsky (2005) states that there is no direct or predictable behaviour for the arguments of a verb as determined by its event type alone. It is the Event-Structure combined with a set of mapping principles that constrains argument realization. The principles are as follows (Pustejovsky 2005:54):

(98)

A. The semantic participant involved in a predicate opposition is mapped onto the internal argument position of the lexical structure (roughly the d-structure object position).

B. The agentive participant in the initial sub event of event structure is mapped onto the external argument position of the lexical structure (roughly the d-structure subject).

C. If the predicate opposition involves a relation, then both of the participants are mapped onto internal argument positions of the argument structure. Otherwise, relational arguments are mapped directly as expressed at event structure: for example give and put are examples where the culminating state is a relation, and both arguments are realized as internal arguments.

D. Any participant in the initial event not expressed by principles (A) or (B) is mapped onto the external argument position.

E. Each sub event must be associated with at least one argument position at lexical structure.

Principle (A) assumes that the semantic participant in transitions such as in (97) above will be realized as objects in d-structure (He assumes a deep unaccusativity analysis for such participants as in Levin (1989)).

Principle (B) ensures that the agent that is the first participant in the act relation will be mapped to subject positions as in (98) and (99).

Principle (C) ensures that if the STATE sub event structure involves a relation as in di-transitive verbs, then both participants of the relation will be mapped onto internal arguments as in (99). Mapping of unergative subjects is taken care of by principle (D) as in (95). Lastly, principle (E) accounts for unsubcategorized arguments of a

predicate as in laugh herself silly.

Pustejovsky states that the level of Event Structure is a further refinement of the semantic responsibilities within a Lexical Conceptual Structure.

Also similar to Jackendoff, semantic participants are defined with respect to their positioning in the Event-Structure but unlike him, only the agent role is explicitly stated. Thematic roles such as theme, patient may be interpreted as the semantic participant referred to by principle (A) while the beneficiary and goal/source roles by principle (C).

In addition to the four basic event structures above, I recognize three other types. The first and second types represent the cause and result part of a causative relation respectively and the third a type that denotes inchoative events as in the following sentence:

(99) The banana ripened.

Fowley (1992) defines inchoation as a process of becoming, or a transition from the absence of a state to the presence of a state and is equivalent roughly to Vendler’s (1967) achievement.

Also different from Pustejovsky, I recognize three types of accomplishment

constructions. Those that involve canonical causation as in (96) and (97) above, those

that involve self-agentive causation as in (100a) below and those that involve ballistic movement as in (100b) below:

(100) a. John walked home.

b. John threw a ball.

(100a) consists of a process that undergoes event shift to an accomplishment.

Pustejovsky’s account is similar to the Matrix framework in that thematic roles (with the exception of the agent theta role) are left unspecified. Following the discussion in the literature that no small set of discrete thematic roles will cover all the arguments of all kinds of verbs and the informal intuitive nature of theta role classification, an analysis such as Pustejovsky’s where mapping of participant roles to valence positions is determine by the position in the Event Structure template, allows for generalizations for sets of event predicates to be captured.

In my analysis the basic event structures: states, processes and transitions are

introduced as subtypes of event-relation in the Matrix grammar that I label eventstruc-rel. This type is constrained by the attributes TELIC, DYNAMIC, DURATION, BALLISTIC, INCHOATIVE and DEGREE.

Participant roles are of the type semarg which are values of ARG constraining the type event-relation. In addition, an attribute ROLE with value role also constrains event-relation. I recognize four types of role from which sub-types may inherit:

initiator, non-initiator, precipitator and path. The type precipitator is introduced to account for the participants in a causative relation.

A sub-type on initiator is the agent. This type subsumes the doer of an action and a voluntary actor (cf Jackendoff 1990).

Referring back to Pustejovsky’s mapping principles in (98) above the participants in principle B is equivalent to the initiator and precipitator role while the non-initiator is equivalent to the participant in principle A. For principle C, the entity that is displaced is the theme and the second participant in a transfer/possession relation is the

recipient, benefactive or goal. For principle D the participant is the agent (doer).

The hierarchy of roles is presented in (101) below. Linking between these values to values of attributes of val and qval is as defined in chapter 1. The types are:

process-eventstruc-rel, state-eventstruc-rel, result-eventstruc-rel , cause-eventstruc, cause-eventstruc-rel, achievement-eventstruc-rel and inchoative-eventstruc-rel. Sub-types of cause-eventstruc-rel are transition-canonical-cause-eventstruc-rel, transition-self-agentive-cause-eventstruc-rel and transition-ballistic-cause-eventstruc-rel.

The constraints on these types by their basic aspectual properties are expressed as attributes with boolean values: TELIC [±], DYNAMIC [±], DURATION [±], INCHOATION [±], DEGREE [±] and BALLISTIC [±].

Pustejovsky’s analysis of eventualities that encode a result state as implying an opposition of two sub events E1 and ¬E2 can be defined in terms of telicity whereby the result event provides the temporal end point. They are therefore telic events.

Processes consist only of the positive part of the opposition E and are atelic in nature.

The types transition-cause-eventstruc-rel and transition-achievement-eventstruc-rel are further distinguished by the attribute DURATION. Accomplishment events are durational while achievements are not.

Also the types process-eventstruc-rel and state-eventstruc-rel are distinguished by the attribute DYNAMIC. Process events are dynamic while states are not.

In addition, the types transition-achievement-eventstruc-rel and transition-inchoative-eventstruc-rel are distinguished by a negative value for the attributes DYNAMIC and INCHOATION for the former and a positive value for the Latter. In addition,

inchoative eventualities are telic in nature.

The causal relationship between sub-events in a transition-cause-eventstruc-rel is represented as a constraint on the ARG1 and ARG2 attributes constraining this type.

ARG1 has the value cause-eventstruc-rel that is constrained by the attribute ROLE of the type precipitator. ARG2 has the value result-eventstruc-rel that is constrained by the attribute ROLE of the type non-initiator.

Below in (101) I present the hierarchy of role relations:

(101)

I now present the type hierarchy for event structure relations in (102) below:

role

initiator precipitator non-initiator path

agent cognizer communicator possessor sensor mover

theme affected recipient benefactive goal location source

(102)

The partial hierarchy in (103) below shows formally the relation of the eventstruc-relations to arguments of a verbal relation.

(103)

The types process-eventstruc-rel and state-event-struc-rel if having a participant of one, inherit from arg1-eventstruc-rel. The following constraints show this.

(104) ^arg1

ARG1 ref-ind

process eventstruc rel

− − −

⎡ ⎤

⎢ ⎥

⎣ ⎦

(105) ^{arg 1}

ARG1 ref-ind

state eventstruc rel

− − −

⎡ ⎤

⎢ ⎥

⎣ ⎦

The type transition-inchoative-eventstruc-rel (as in (99) above) also inherit from arg1-eventstruc-rel and has the following constraint.

(106)

arg 1 ARG1 ref-ind

transition inchoative eventstruc rel

− − − −

⎡ ⎤

⎢ ⎥

⎣ ⎦

Arg0-relation

arg1-rel arg2-rel arg3-rel eventstruc-rel

arg1-only-rel arg12-rel arg23-rel

arg123-rel arg2-only-rel

arg2-only-eventstruc-rel

arg1-eventstruc-rel arg12-eventstruc-rel

arg123-eventstruc-rel Arg4-rel

arg14-eventstruc-rel arg124-eventstruc-rel

The type transition-eventstruc (as in (95) above) may inherit from arg2-only-eventstruc and has the following constraint.

(107)

The type intrans-verb-lxm discussed in chapter 1 inherits from either (104), (105), (106) or (107) depending on the aktionsart expressed by the predicate.

The transitive-verb-lxm and ditransitive-verb-lxm types of transition-canonical-cause-eventstruc has the former inheriting from arg12-eventstruc-rel (108) and the latter inheriting from arg123-eventstruc-rel (109) with appropriate constraints:

(108)

arg 12

ARG1 event-or-ref-index ARG2 event-or-ref-index

transition canonical cause eventstruc rel

− − − − − ARG2 event-or-ref-index ARG3 event-or-ref-index

transition canonical cause eventstruc rel

− − − − −

I use the verb rhùlé 'run' a predicate expressing an activity, as illustration in (110) through (113) below.

(110)

intrans-process-verb-lxm := intrans-verb-lxm & arg1-process-subject-lex-item.

(111) arg1-subject-lex-item

(112) arg1-process-subject-lex-item := arg1-subject-lex-item &

⎡⎣SYNSEM.LOCAL.CONT.RELS ! arg1-process-eventstruc-relation !⎤⎦

(113)⁴⁶

LOCAL.CONT.HOOK.INDEX # 1

The account given above explains in a constrained manner the interpretation of the – rV past tense suffix when suffixed to intransitive verbs with event structure of the type process-eventstruc-rel (as in (106) through (113) above) and those with event

structure of the type transition-inchoative-eventstruc-rel. The former has only a past interpretation and the latter an inchoative interpretation as discussed in chapter 2. For the latter, I repeat examples (30a) and (30b) from chapter 2 as (114a) and (114b) below. And in (115) I give a partial AVM constraining this type.

46 The semantic properties constraining the eventstruc-rel types in (104) need to be accessible to constrain selection of appropriate prepositions, adverbs and verbs. This is achieved by an attribute SORT with value sort constraining the type individual the super type for the type event. This is discussed in chapter 7.

(114) a. Ò gó.

Ò gó.

3.SG bend.PRES.H

PRON V 'It is bending.' b. Ò gó-rè.

Ò gó-rè.

3.SG bend-rV

PRON V

'It bent or it is crooked.'

(115) intrans-transition-verb-lxm := intrans-verb-lxm & arg1-transition-inchoative-subject-lex-item &

arg1

ARG1 ref-ind

transition inchoative eventstruc relation

− − − −

⎡ ⎤

⎢ ⎥

⎣ ⎦

We turn now to the phenomenon of event shift discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2.3.2 whereby the occurrence of an accomplishment with a bare NP with a plural

interpretation results in a type shift to a process. Also, activities can through the combination with a goal participant become an accomplishment.

For the shift from accomplishment to process as in 'John bakes cakes' two factors come into play.

First, the construction shifts its telicity type to a negative value for the attribute TELIC. Secondly, the shift in telicity triggers a non-resultative interpretation and there is no longer a causative relationship thereby eliminating the ARG2 result-eventstruc-rel constraining accomplishments. The type shift then results in a process eventuality.

The opposite is the case for the shift from a process to an accomplishment as in ' John walked home '. The addition of the goal participant home shifts the event type to a causative event with a following shift in the value of the attribute TELIC from

negative to positive. The type transition-self-agentive-cause-eventstruc-rel represents this construction type. I do not formalize the discussion on type shift in this thesis.

In document Multi-Verb Constructions in È̱DÓ (sider 184-195)