Tromsø Group Meeting: October 27 (Gawron)
Gawron's Generalized Paths
The Tromsø group discussed this paper over two sessions. We thought that the big idea in this paper was very clear and very compelling. We were convinced that the notion of path, in the traditional sense of mapping some varying property onto a time line thus expressing change, should be generalized to a mapping of that property onto a spatial axis, thus divorcing change from time. As a result of this idea, the group got into various discussions about the empirical data for different verbs and different languages seeking to explore the universality and limits of the phenomenon. The other aspect of our discussions centred on the mathematical implementation of the abstraction that would be required to make these facts fall out of a generalized semantics for the verbs in question. We found the paper very compressed and concise and spent a long time trying to unpack the slice function in particular. By the end of the second session, our empirical discussions and our technical concerns began to dovetail so a neat division was not always possible.
Event and Extent Readings by Verb and Language
We discussed mainly interesting observations from the different languages represented. Many of these observations were concerned with ways in which one can isolate one of the readings. For example, in Persian, the following pattern obtains:
(1) ...WIDE BECOME ambiguous
...WIDER BECOME stative only
In German, it seems that there are (many?) verbs that have either one or the other reading, but not both. for example, 'sich ausbreiten' (related to English 'broaden', and with the reflexive 'sich') only gives rise to eventive readings, and 'reichen von' (related to English 'reach') only gives rise to extent readings. The idea was floating in the air that perhaps reflexivity has something to do with this, but we didn't make progress on this idea. I guess partly because it wouldn't hold for other languages, such as Spanish (and I think also Russian), where verbs that have a reflexive particle can give rise to both readings. An example from Spanish:
(2) La niebla se extendia desde/de Londres a Paris
the fog reflx. extend.past.imp from L to P
It seems that both in Spanish and Russian the aspect of the verb can, perhaps expectedly, affect the availability of readings. In Spanish, changing the aspect of the verb in (2) to perfective ('extendio') results in only the eventive reading being there.
In the case of mapping a dimension onto a spatial axis, we discussed the observations that the dimension chosen as the spatial axis is subject to contextual manipulation, but that in general, one needs to choose a spatial axis whose measurement is a monotonic measure with respect to that object. Thus, the cable can widen along its length, but cannot lengthen along the dimension of width. This asymmetry seemed to be related to the Schwarzschild generalization about measures and nouns within the NP. So, one can say `one metre of cable' and not `one metre cable'; whereas one says `two inch cable' and not `two inches of cable' for referring to width.
We had some discussion of the different readings possible with `extent' verbs and the degree achievement verbs. Consider the sentences below.
(3) The fog extended from London to Paris.
This has the two readings laid out by Gawron as follows:
Reading 1: the fog moves and space covered by the spreading motion increases from including just London to also including Paris (event reading)
Reading 2: The fog statically covers the region between London and Paris (extent reading)
(4) The crack widened from the north gate to the south gate.
Reading 1: The crack gets wider as a whole, and the part of the crack that was getting wider is delimited by the two positions (event reading)
Reading 2: The crack is not moving, but the dimension of wideness is greater at the south gate than the north gate. (extent reading).
Gillian also detected a third reading for verbs like widen, if the subject was chosen correctly.
(5) The fog widened from London to Paris
Reading 3?: The fog moves from London to Paris, getting wider all the time (event reading, but tracking width as well)
Peter did not get this reading at all, and thought it was a very forced kind of coercion, but Gillian said she got it very easily. We wondered whether this third reading was possible for other speakers and/or other languages.
Whether the double reading exists or not, there are clearly two different scales that can potentially be mapped onto the time line: in the case of the extent verbs it is the material constituency of the subject; in the case of the degree achievements it is the increase of the property denoted by the adjective. If a degree achievement can be coerced into a manner of motion verb (possible for Gillian, but not Peter), then both scales seem to be mapped on to the time line. Gawron does not conceive of the extent readings as being mappings from stuff to time, but builds it in as a part of the notion of `spreading motion' as opposed to the motion of a rigid object. We wondered whether the material constituency scale could be unified with/analogous to Krifka's creation/consumption objects in event readings.
We noted that it is nice that in English the same temporal prepositions that are used to test for telicity (in the 'in'/'for' test) can be used to test for change in the space domain, as in the examples in (10) in the text. We noted that this is not so in all languages (e.g., in Spanish, 'for' is translated as 'durante' (similar to 'during') and cannot be used in the spatial case).
We did not this that this undermined the general point about `aspectual' properties being preserved in the generalized sense, just that English made the analogy even more striking.
Demon Mathematics
We found it hard to visualise four dimensions and so had trouble unpacking the effects of the slice function. One question that arose was whether the `demon' function in principle knew everything about all possible property and dimension scales, or whether it only understood time and three spatial dimensions for location. If the former, then it would be tracking in principle an almost infinite number of scales, only one of which would ever be picked out to intersect with the object's spatiotemporal trace function. Klaus wasn't convinced that the Tplane was intended to cover property scales like the ones required for degree achievement verbs since Gawron only talks about chosing S to be temporal or a spatial axis. Luisa and Gillian had read it as in principle generalizable to other scales. In any case, Klaus may have been right, since empirically there seems to be an asymmetry among scales: among verbs it seems to be possible to track any scale with respect to either space or time, but we couldn't find cases of where something was tracked with respect to a non space-time scale. If periphrasis is employed as in (6) , this kind of tracking seems to be possible, but we couldn't find a grammatical use of a verb plus the relevant path phrase to get the same effect:
(6) Stars get redder as they get cooler..
(7) *Stars cool from x wavelengths ps to y wavelengths ps.
(8) *Stars redden from x degrees to y degrees.
(For these judgements, we had to abstract away from the event reading, where an individual star or stars is changing in its property over time. These seem possible, but parasitic on the time line. The readings we were after were those in which lots of stars are being looked at and as we move on the colour scale we find stars that are different in temperature, and vice versa. These static readings for (7) and (8) seemed impossible to us.)
We surmise that time and space are privileged as the basic axes along which other things are tracked.
Another question that emerged was the use of the START and END functions in the description of the increase function found in verbs such as `widen'. (We assume incidentally that this comes from Hay, Kennedy and Levin 99 which are are going to read next in any case). The issue that arose here was whether it was enough to simply state that the degree of wideness was greater at the end of the event than at the start. Gillian's intuition was that the condition was stronger and that wideness had to increase monotonically with whatever the axis was (either space or time). Peter disagreed with these judgements and the data proved harder to disentangle than we imagined. First of all, one needs to recognise and abstract away from the granularity issue--- something can be perceived as generally getting wider even though a low level inspection of the measurement would surely show internal fluctuations. Secondly, the intuition about whether gradual monotonic increase was required seemed to vary with the particular kind of PP chosen. (spatial readings intended in 9-11 here, but the same point would be made with parallel event readings for widen)
(9) The cable widened from the living room to the basement.
(10) The cable widened in the basement.
(11) The cable widened along the skirting board.
Peter got a `just has to be wider in the basement' reading for (9), while Gillian got a gradual increase with no major reversals reading for (9). For (10), Gillian got either (i) suddenly gets to be wider in the basement or (ii) `starts to gradually increase in width as you hit the basement' reading. Peter also saw the ambiguity in (10) but thought that the (ii) reading was irrelevant. However, for both of our English native speakers (P and G), the gradual monotonic reading of `widen' seemed to be forced in (11). It's hard to know exactly how to interpret this data. Peter was in favour of retaining START and END, but allowing pragmatics and/or the semantics of the PPs to do the rest (possibly by enforcing `increase' at all subintervals to get gradual readings if one needed them). Klaus thought that it was better to build in monotonicity with respect to the scale in the increase function from the start (since it was easier to `coarsen' up structure than interpolate it). Gillian agreed with Klaus, but we had no way of proving things one way or the other at our meeting. We hope to get further on this question when we read the Hay, Kennedy and Levin.
The Tromsø group discussed this paper over two sessions. We thought that the big idea in this paper was very clear and very compelling. We were convinced that the notion of path, in the traditional sense of mapping some varying property onto a time line thus expressing change, should be generalized to a mapping of that property onto a spatial axis, thus divorcing change from time. As a result of this idea, the group got into various discussions about the empirical data for different verbs and different languages seeking to explore the universality and limits of the phenomenon. The other aspect of our discussions centred on the mathematical implementation of the abstraction that would be required to make these facts fall out of a generalized semantics for the verbs in question. We found the paper very compressed and concise and spent a long time trying to unpack the slice function in particular. By the end of the second session, our empirical discussions and our technical concerns began to dovetail so a neat division was not always possible.
Event and Extent Readings by Verb and Language
We discussed mainly interesting observations from the different languages represented. Many of these observations were concerned with ways in which one can isolate one of the readings. For example, in Persian, the following pattern obtains:
(1) ...WIDE BECOME ambiguous
...WIDER BECOME stative only
In German, it seems that there are (many?) verbs that have either one or the other reading, but not both. for example, 'sich ausbreiten' (related to English 'broaden', and with the reflexive 'sich') only gives rise to eventive readings, and 'reichen von' (related to English 'reach') only gives rise to extent readings. The idea was floating in the air that perhaps reflexivity has something to do with this, but we didn't make progress on this idea. I guess partly because it wouldn't hold for other languages, such as Spanish (and I think also Russian), where verbs that have a reflexive particle can give rise to both readings. An example from Spanish:
(2) La niebla se extendia desde/de Londres a Paris
the fog reflx. extend.past.imp from L to P
It seems that both in Spanish and Russian the aspect of the verb can, perhaps expectedly, affect the availability of readings. In Spanish, changing the aspect of the verb in (2) to perfective ('extendio') results in only the eventive reading being there.
In the case of mapping a dimension onto a spatial axis, we discussed the observations that the dimension chosen as the spatial axis is subject to contextual manipulation, but that in general, one needs to choose a spatial axis whose measurement is a monotonic measure with respect to that object. Thus, the cable can widen along its length, but cannot lengthen along the dimension of width. This asymmetry seemed to be related to the Schwarzschild generalization about measures and nouns within the NP. So, one can say `one metre of cable' and not `one metre cable'; whereas one says `two inch cable' and not `two inches of cable' for referring to width.
We had some discussion of the different readings possible with `extent' verbs and the degree achievement verbs. Consider the sentences below.
(3) The fog extended from London to Paris.
This has the two readings laid out by Gawron as follows:
Reading 1: the fog moves and space covered by the spreading motion increases from including just London to also including Paris (event reading)
Reading 2: The fog statically covers the region between London and Paris (extent reading)
(4) The crack widened from the north gate to the south gate.
Reading 1: The crack gets wider as a whole, and the part of the crack that was getting wider is delimited by the two positions (event reading)
Reading 2: The crack is not moving, but the dimension of wideness is greater at the south gate than the north gate. (extent reading).
Gillian also detected a third reading for verbs like widen, if the subject was chosen correctly.
(5) The fog widened from London to Paris
Reading 3?: The fog moves from London to Paris, getting wider all the time (event reading, but tracking width as well)
Peter did not get this reading at all, and thought it was a very forced kind of coercion, but Gillian said she got it very easily. We wondered whether this third reading was possible for other speakers and/or other languages.
Whether the double reading exists or not, there are clearly two different scales that can potentially be mapped onto the time line: in the case of the extent verbs it is the material constituency of the subject; in the case of the degree achievements it is the increase of the property denoted by the adjective. If a degree achievement can be coerced into a manner of motion verb (possible for Gillian, but not Peter), then both scales seem to be mapped on to the time line. Gawron does not conceive of the extent readings as being mappings from stuff to time, but builds it in as a part of the notion of `spreading motion' as opposed to the motion of a rigid object. We wondered whether the material constituency scale could be unified with/analogous to Krifka's creation/consumption objects in event readings.
We noted that it is nice that in English the same temporal prepositions that are used to test for telicity (in the 'in'/'for' test) can be used to test for change in the space domain, as in the examples in (10) in the text. We noted that this is not so in all languages (e.g., in Spanish, 'for' is translated as 'durante' (similar to 'during') and cannot be used in the spatial case).
We did not this that this undermined the general point about `aspectual' properties being preserved in the generalized sense, just that English made the analogy even more striking.
Demon Mathematics
We found it hard to visualise four dimensions and so had trouble unpacking the effects of the slice function. One question that arose was whether the `demon' function in principle knew everything about all possible property and dimension scales, or whether it only understood time and three spatial dimensions for location. If the former, then it would be tracking in principle an almost infinite number of scales, only one of which would ever be picked out to intersect with the object's spatiotemporal trace function. Klaus wasn't convinced that the Tplane was intended to cover property scales like the ones required for degree achievement verbs since Gawron only talks about chosing S to be temporal or a spatial axis. Luisa and Gillian had read it as in principle generalizable to other scales. In any case, Klaus may have been right, since empirically there seems to be an asymmetry among scales: among verbs it seems to be possible to track any scale with respect to either space or time, but we couldn't find cases of where something was tracked with respect to a non space-time scale. If periphrasis is employed as in (6) , this kind of tracking seems to be possible, but we couldn't find a grammatical use of a verb plus the relevant path phrase to get the same effect:
(6) Stars get redder as they get cooler..
(7) *Stars cool from x wavelengths ps to y wavelengths ps.
(8) *Stars redden from x degrees to y degrees.
(For these judgements, we had to abstract away from the event reading, where an individual star or stars is changing in its property over time. These seem possible, but parasitic on the time line. The readings we were after were those in which lots of stars are being looked at and as we move on the colour scale we find stars that are different in temperature, and vice versa. These static readings for (7) and (8) seemed impossible to us.)
We surmise that time and space are privileged as the basic axes along which other things are tracked.
Another question that emerged was the use of the START and END functions in the description of the increase function found in verbs such as `widen'. (We assume incidentally that this comes from Hay, Kennedy and Levin 99 which are are going to read next in any case). The issue that arose here was whether it was enough to simply state that the degree of wideness was greater at the end of the event than at the start. Gillian's intuition was that the condition was stronger and that wideness had to increase monotonically with whatever the axis was (either space or time). Peter disagreed with these judgements and the data proved harder to disentangle than we imagined. First of all, one needs to recognise and abstract away from the granularity issue--- something can be perceived as generally getting wider even though a low level inspection of the measurement would surely show internal fluctuations. Secondly, the intuition about whether gradual monotonic increase was required seemed to vary with the particular kind of PP chosen. (spatial readings intended in 9-11 here, but the same point would be made with parallel event readings for widen)
(9) The cable widened from the living room to the basement.
(10) The cable widened in the basement.
(11) The cable widened along the skirting board.
Peter got a `just has to be wider in the basement' reading for (9), while Gillian got a gradual increase with no major reversals reading for (9). For (10), Gillian got either (i) suddenly gets to be wider in the basement or (ii) `starts to gradually increase in width as you hit the basement' reading. Peter also saw the ambiguity in (10) but thought that the (ii) reading was irrelevant. However, for both of our English native speakers (P and G), the gradual monotonic reading of `widen' seemed to be forced in (11). It's hard to know exactly how to interpret this data. Peter was in favour of retaining START and END, but allowing pragmatics and/or the semantics of the PPs to do the rest (possibly by enforcing `increase' at all subintervals to get gradual readings if one needed them). Klaus thought that it was better to build in monotonicity with respect to the scale in the increase function from the start (since it was easier to `coarsen' up structure than interpolate it). Gillian agreed with Klaus, but we had no way of proving things one way or the other at our meeting. We hope to get further on this question when we read the Hay, Kennedy and Levin.
posted by Gillian Ramchand at 17:56
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