Situation Aspect

[Stephen Nightingale]

Lili,

You might want to check my PhD thesis, completed last year.
In constructing an analysis  of "V-te V" conjunctions in Japanese,
I develop a model of aspect which is more closely based on
Vendler-Dowty than it is on Pustejovsky (whose framework I am
to some extent using).

There are however differences between aspect in English and
Aspect in Japanese, but the thesis gives some insight into
the differences.  I constructed an ALE model of the data, giving
an implementation of aspect (for Japanese).

You can find my thesis (Postscript, 2Mb) at:
http://slt.atr.co.jp/~night/pubs/thesis.ps

The ALE model is at:
http://slt.atr.co.jp/~night/pubs/tetype.pl

FYI, the thesis Abstract is given below.

Regards,

Stephen.


   Polysemy and Homonymy in Japanese Verbal Alternations
          Stephen Nightingale, Edinburgh, December 1999.

This thesis investigates the degree to which Japanese verbal
alternations can be related synchronically.  In particular, it
investigates the possibility of providing a polysemous analysis of the
verbs which appear in simplex and conjunct forms using the conjunctive
te form.

The data which are investigated include those verbs which participate
as second conjunct in a syntactic construction which has been labelled
by Hasegawa (1995) as Nuclear Conjunction. The verbs taking second conjunct
position which are analysed include miru (see),
morau (receive), ageru (give), iru (animate be) and
aru (inanimate be).  In the conjunct construction,
the first conjunct takes the affix te and no arguments can
intervene between the two verbs. Furthermore the Vendler-Dowty
(Dowty (1979)) aspectual class of the first conjunct verb is
restricted, and there is variation in the number of arguments that can
be realised, depending on the properties of the second conjunct.

The analysis is developed using Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
(HPSG) (Pollard and Sag (1994)) and Pustejovsky's (1995) Generative Lexicon
theory.  Polysemous analyses of the simplex and te form
alternations of miru, morau and ageru are provided, based on
underspecification in the syntactic comps and semantic
content type hierarchies.  Since current HPSG makes no provision for
aspect, a type hierarchy is developed using Pustejovsky's Event
Structure, under the content field.  Variations in argument
realization are shown to follow from the different modes of composing
the first and second conjuncts.  One particularly
interesting construction in Japanese is what Matsumoto (1990) calls
the Intransitivizing Resultative involving V+te aru, which as a
conjunction projects the undergoer of the first conjunct to subject,
suppressing the actor role.  The valence alternation displayed in
this construction is explained by the Agentive and Formal projections
of Pustejovsky's Qualia Structure.

Some degree of polysemy is shown to hold between simplex and conjunct
uses of the example verbs, but there are other syntactic
phenomena to be explained.  The thesis also examines the
te  conjunctions as control constructions and finds that
Pollard and Sag's (1994) claim that the controlling subject is overtly
structure-shared with the semantic subject of the embedded predicate,
is at best not proven.  A further phenomenon of the conjunct
combinations of V+te iru and V+te aru is that these forms
combine with adverbs compatible with the aspectual class of the second
(Stative) conjunct, whereas in other te conjunctions, adverbs
are compatible with first conjunct aspect.  This phenomenon
can be explained only by positing argument structure at the phrasal
level, with the V+te iru/V+te aru phrase projecting the combined
argument structure of the two conjuncts, in contradiction to the
Lexicalist Hypothesis first proposed by Bresnan (1978).