expos=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=A9_?=Rebekah Baglini- Eventualities in the semantic ontology

[Alda MARI]

Chers collègues, 
 
vous êtes cordialement invités à l'exposé de 
 
Rebekah Baglini
University of Chicago 
 
`Eventualities in the semantic ontology'
 
qui aura lieu le mercredi 18 septembre à 11h30 à l'Institut Jean Nicod
 
29, rue d'Ulm
pavillon jardin
salle au rez de chaussée en entrant à gauche
 
(un resumé suit ci-dessous)
 
en vous souhaitant une bonne rentrée,
cordialement, 
Alda Mari
 
**************
Title: Eventualities in the semantic ontology 

 
Abstract: 
It is widely accepted that denotational properties of noun phrases can be analyzed in terms of their mereological part structure, modeled algebraically as complete join semi-lattices (Link, 1983). Algebraic structure is now also commonly implicated in studies of aspectual phenomena: telic verbal expressions are quantized while atelic verbal expressions have cumulative reference, thus paralleling the count/non-count divide in nominal expressions (Mourelatos, 1981; Bach, 1986; Krifka, 1989; Filip, 1999; inter alia).  However, I argue that in addition to algebraic structure, objects in the semantic ontology are also sorted according whether they constitute extensive or non-extensive quantities. Only objects of the former type are compatible with extensive (spatiotemporal) measure functions.  

The analysis I develop brings together the tools of two formal theories that have been influential in natural language semantics, but often applied independently: classical extensional mereology and measurement theory. This analysis is closely related to familiar applications of these theories in semantics, but more explicitly clarifies the links between the algebraic structure of domains of denotation to the availability of certain sorts of orderings, thus deriving observed patterns with respect to measurement. Crucially, my use of measurement theory emphasizes the importance of the classical division between extensive and intensive magnitudes (Van de Velde 1995, Tovena 2001), arguing that this division is needed to accurately capture aspectual behavior, the eventive/stative divide and cases which seem to straddle it, as well as the relation between stative predicates and gradability.
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