conf. del Prete 19/2

[Bridget Copley]

Le programme "Temporalité : Typologie et Acquisition" de la Fédération "Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques"  du CNRS a le plaisir d'annoncer un exposé : 

"Generic meaning in Italian imperfectives"

Fabio del Prete, Institut Jean Nicod

Date : vendredi 19/2/10
Lieu : CNRS Pouchet (59 rue Pouchet, Paris 75016, métro Guy Môquet/Brochant, RER Porte de Clichy, bus 66) 
salle à préciser
Heure: 10h30-12h30

Vous pouvez consulter la page temptypac à http://www.umr7023.cnrs.fr/-Temporalite-typologie-et-.html, l'agenda du laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage à http://www.umr7023.cnrs.fr/spip.php?rubrique209, ou le site web de la Fédération Typologie et Universaux Linguistiques à http://www.typologie.cnrs.fr. 


résumé : 

The focus of this talk is on the emergence of generic meaning in imperfective sentences of Italian. I look at genericity as it manifest itself both in the verbal domain and in the nominal domain (generic interpretation of indefinites). Verbal genericity, which subsumes habituality, is exemplified by the generic interpretation of the VP in (1), while nominal genericity is exemplified by the generic interpretation of the subject NP in (2):
(1)     Gianni viaggia in treno.
         ‘Gianni travels by train.’
(2)     Un cane è fedele al proprio padrone.
         ‘A dog is faithful to its master.’
A fact that has not received much attention thus far is the one-way dependency relation between the generic interpretation of a subject indefinite and the generic interpretation of the verb predicate. For example, (3) can be interpreted as an episodic sentence (event-in-progress), and on this reading its subject must receive an existential interpretation. Only if the verb predicate is generic, can the subject be generic.
(3)     Un italiano mangia spaghetti.
         Episodic reading: ‘An Italian is eating spaghetti.’ [episodic VP à existential indefinite]
         Generic reading : ‘An Italian generally eats spaghetti.’ [generic indefinite à generic VP]
         Unattested reading: ‘* An Italian in general is eating spaghetti now.’ [* generic indefinite & episodic VP]
On the other hand, this implicational relation is only one-way, as is apparent from the fact that (4) can be generic, without its subject indefinite being generic.
(4)     Un italiano che conosco mangia spaghetti.
         ‘An Italian who I know eats spaghetti.’ [existential indefinite & generic VP]
This shows that, of the two sources of genericity suggested by Krifka et al. (1995), namely the NP and the VP, the latter is more fundamental than the former in an important sense: as far as we have a generic interpretation at the VP-level, the sentence as a whole is interpreted generically (and to this effect the interpretation of the subject indefinite is not relevant), but if we want to have a generic interpretation of the subject indefinite, we are bound to the generic interpretation of the VP.
On the basis of this asymmetric dependency, I propose that the source of the generic interpretation in the nominal domain is verbal genericity.
On the basis of contrasts such as the one between (5) and (6), I further propose that verbal genericity arises when the reference time underlying the interpretation of imperfectives is an unbounded or an otherwise large interval, small intervals forcing event-in-progress readings.
(5)     In questo periodo, Gianni suona il piano.
         ‘Nowadays, Gianni plays piano.’
(6)     In questo istante, Gianni suona il piano.
         ‘Right now, Gianni is playing piano.’
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