Informacion sobre tesis doctoral: ROBY, D. 2007. Aspect and the Categorization of States: The case of ser and estar in Spanish.

Thu May 10 21:01:59 UTC 2007

-------------------          INFOLING          --------------------
Lista de distribución sobre lingüística del español (ISSN: 1576-3404):  http://elies.rediris.es/infoling/
Envío de información: infoling-request at listserv.rediris.es
EDITORES:
Carlos Subirats Rüggeberg, UAB <carlos.subirats at uab.es>
Mar Cruz Piñol, U. Barcelona <mcruz at ub.edu>
Eulalia de Bobes Soler, U. Abat Oliba-CEU <debobes1 at uao.es>
Equipo de edición: http://elies.rediris.es/infoling/editores.html
Estudios de Lingüística del Español (ELiEs): http://elies.rediris.es
es una red temática de lingüística del español asociada a INFOLING.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

            INFOLING: una lista independiente y global
© Infoling Barcelona (España), 2006. Reservados todos los derechos

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Información sobre tesis doctoral:
ROBY, David B. 2007. Aspect and the Categorization of States: The case
of ser and estar in Spanish. University of Texas at Austin, Department
of Spanish and Portuguese
Información de: David Roby  <robydavid [arroba] yahoo [punto] com>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Autor:
ROBY, David B

2. Título de la tesis:
Aspect and the Categorization of States: The case of ser and estar in Spanish

3. Fecha de lectura o defensa: 2007

4. Departamento, centro o laboratorio en el que se ha desarrollado:
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
University of Texas at Austin, USA

5. Directora:
Prof. Marta E. Luján

6. Proyecto o línea de investigación en el que se incluye

7. Resumen e índice

In this work, the primary goal will be to construct the most
descriptively and explanatorily adequate analysis possible to account
for the complementary distribution of the Spanish copula verbs ser and
estar. Over the past several decades, numerous theoretical accounts
have been put forth in an attempt to accomplish this goal. Though such
accounts accurately predict most types of stative sentences with the
two copulas, they often fall short of predicting a significant number
of them that are used in everyday speech. The first chapters of this
dissertation will be devoted to reviewing a number of existing
approaches that have been taken to account for the uses of ser and
estar by testing their theoretical viability and descriptive adequacy.
Among these are traditional conventions such as the inherent qualities
vs. current condition distinction and the analysis of estar as an
indicator of change. Those of a more recent theoretical framework,
which will receive the most attention, include the application of
Kratzer's (1995) individual-level vs. stage-level distinction to
stative predicates and Maienborn's (2005) discourse-based
interpretation of Spanish copulative predication. Schmitt's (2005)
compositionally-based analysis of Portuguese ser and estar, which
treats only estar as an aspectual copula, will be of special interest.

After testing each of these analyses, it will be shown that the least
costly and most accurate course to take for analyzing ser and estar is
to treat both verbs as aspectual morphemes along the lines of Luján
(1981). As aspectual copulas, ser and estar denote the aspectual
distinction [±Perfective]. In my proposed analysis, I will argue that
aspect applies to both events and states, but does so internally and
externally respectively. By adapting Verkuyl's (2004) feature algebra
to states, I will posit that aspect for stative predication is
compositionally calculated, and the
individual aspectual values for ser and estar remain constant in
co-composition. In light of its descriptive adequacy for Spanish
stative sentences and universality in natural language, it will also
be shown that the [±Perfective] aspectual distinction is very strong
in terms of explanatory adequacy as well.

Table of Contents

ABBREVIATIONS

CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL PREMISES AND BACKGROUND DATA

1.0. Introduction
1.1. Theoretical Premises
1.1.1. Cognitive Divisions of the World
1.1.2. Stage-Level vs. Individual-Level Predication
1.1.3. The Pragmatic Component
1.1.4. The Functional Category of Aspect
1.1.5. Aspectual Composition
1.2. Data Layout
1.2.1. Spanish Data
1.2.2. Cross-Linguistic Data

CHAPTER TWO: COMMON INTERPRETATIONS OF SER AND ESTAR.

2.0. Introduction
2.1. The Permanent vs. Temporary Distinction
2.1.1. Evidence for the Permanent vs. Temporary Distinction
2.1.2. Arguments Against the Permanent vs. Temporary Distinction
2.2. Estar Used to Indicate a Change of State
2.2.1. Apparent Cases of estar Denoting a Change of State
2.2.2. Estar Used for Geographical or Other Location
2.2.3. Estar + adjective as Counterevidence
2.3. Apparent "Meaning Changing" Adjectives
2.4. The Implied Comparison Interpretation
2.5. Ser for Inherent Characteristics vs. estar for Current Condition
2.6. Summary

CHAPTER THREE: RECENT THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS

3.0. Introduction
3.1. Davidsonian Event Arguments and Stage vs. Individual-Level Predicates
3.2. The VP/IP Split Hypothesis
3.3. Ser/estar and the Stage vs. Individual-level Distinction
3.3.1. Arguments for the SLP/ILP Distinction for ser/estar
3.3.2. Counterarguments to the SLP/ILP Distinction for ser/estar
Presented by Maienborn (2005)
3.3.3. Counterarguments to the SLP/ILP Distinction for ser/estar
Presented by Schmitt (1992)
3.3.4. The Descriptive Inadequacy of the SLP/ILP Analysis for Passive Sentences
3.4. Ser and estar as Aspectual Indicators
3.5. Maienborn (2005) Discourse-Based Account of ser/estar
3.5.1. Lexical Semantics
3.5.2. Compositional Semantics
3.5.3. The Pragmatic Component
3.6. Schmitt's Analysis: Copula Verbs and Aspectual Composition
3.6.1. Distributed Morphology and Generative Lexicon
3.6.2. Ser as Transparent Verbalizer and estar as Non-Transparent Verbalizer
3.6.3. Act Be Readings for ser and estar
3.6.4. Ser and estar Statehood
3.7. Summary

CHAPTER FOUR: CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF A DISCOURSE-BASED INTERPRETATION

4.0. Introduction
4.1. Testing Maienborn's (2005) Analysis for Descriptive Adequacy
4.1.1. Evidentiality and the Use of estar
4.1.2. Selectional Restrictions for ser and estar
4.1.3. Topic Situation Contrast Along a Spatial Dimension
4.1.4. Topic Situation Contrast Along a Temporal Dimension
4.2. Advantages of a Discourse-Based Framework for ser/estar
4.2.1. The Preterite and Imperfect Conjugations in Spanish
4.2.2. Special Uses of the Imperfect
4.2.3. Special Uses of the Preterite
4.2.4. Special Uses of the Progressive Construction
4.3. Potential Drawbacks of a Pragmatically-Inspired Framework
4.3.1. The Cognitive Internalization of Pragmatic Phenomena
4.3.2. Lack of Cross-Linguistic Uniformity for Pragmatics
4.3.3. Lack of Cross-Dialectal Uniformity for Pragmatics
4.4. Summary

CHAPTER FIVE: ASPECTUAL COMPOSITION AND SER AND ESTAR

5.0. Introduction
5.1. Testing Schmitt's (2005) Analysis for Descriptive Adequacy
5.1.1. Schmitt's Act be Data and Grammaticality Judgments
5.1.2. Co-composition with ser and estar
5.1.3. Implication in ser and estar Predication
5.2. Schmitt's Features for ser and estar
5.2.1. Aspectual Morphology in the Spanish Verbal Paradigm
5.2.2. The Case for ser as an Imperfective Copula
5.3. General Observation Regarding Aspectual Composition
5.3.1. Aspectual Classification and Aspectual Composition
5.3.2. Aspectual Influence on Nouns and Adjectives on ser and estar Predication
5.3.3. The Contribution of the Verb to Aspectual Composition
5.4. Summary

CHAPTER SIX: ASPECTUAL DISTINCTION IN SPANISH COPULAR  PREDICATION

6.0. Introduction
6.1. An Aspect-Driven Theory for ser/estar
6.1.1. Aspectual Features for Both ser and estar
6.1.2. The Compositional Calculation of Aspect
6.1.3. How Aspect Applies to States
6.1.4. Aspectual Calculation for Stative Sentences
6.2. Theoretical Justification for an Aspectual Analysis
6.2.1. Aspect as a Grammatical Category
6.2.2. Constant Values for ser and estar in Aspectual Composition
6.2.3. The Spanish Reflexive
6.3. Empirical Evidence
6.3.1. Attributive Predication
6.3.2. Equational Predication
6.3.3. Generic Predication
6.3.4. Ser and estar in Expressions of Time
6.3.5. Evidential Predicates
6.4. Summary

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSIONS

7.0. Introduction
7.1. Aspect and Explanatory Adequacy
7.1.1. The Theory of Universal Grammar
7.1.2. Aspect as a Universal Functional Feature
7.1.3. Aspect as Universal for States
7.2. Cross-Linguistic Considerations
7.2.1. Aspectual be in African American English
7.2.2. The "Copula" and "Substantive Verb" in Irish
7.3. Implications for Future Research
7.3.1. Aspect and the Syntax and Semantics Interface
7.3.2. Universal Quantifiers and Aspectual Composition
7.3.3. Aspect and Diachronic Language Change
7.4. Summary

References

VITA

8. Correo-e del autor:
 <robydavid [arroba] yahoo [punto] com>

9. Cómo obtener la tesis:
Contactar con el autor.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
PDF Version of Chomsky's Original 1955-56 Thesis

Chomsky's thesis draft (1955-56), the one he was preparing for publication as "The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory" is freely downloadable (436MB):
http://alpha-leonis.lids.mit.edu/chomsky/

The full document contains chapters that were left out of the LSLT
published version, e.g., an information-theoretic method to construct
linguistic categories, that Chomsky developed in conjunction with Peter Elias.
Información de Prof. Bob Berwick, distribuida por Linguist List
----------------------------------------------------------------------