CfP Workshop Agent control over non-culminating events (Chronos 11/Pisa, June 2014)

[Fabienne Martin]

*Workshop proposal for Chronos 11 in Pisa, SNS, 16-18 June 2014*

*Agent control over non-culminating events*

*Meeting description*

In many languages from typologically unrelated families such as
Mandarin (Koenig
& Chief 2008), Thai (Koenig & Muansuwan 2000), Korean (Park 1993, van Valin
2005), Skwxwúmesh, St'at'imcets, or Saanich Straits Salish (Bar-el 2005,
Bar-el et al. 2005, Kiyota 2008, Jacobs 2011), Tagalog (Dell 1983),
Japanese (Ikegami 1985), Hindi (Singh 1998, Altshuler 2013), Tamil
(Pederson 2008),Russian, Karachay-Balkar, Mari and Bagwalal  (Tatevosov &
Ivanov 2009), Adyghe (Arkadiev & Letuchiy 2009), sentences with perfective
accomplishments can be used to describe partial, incomplete or
unsuccessful events.
On this construal, perfective accomplishments do not give rise to
culmination entailments. It is thus possible to deny the culmination of the
event whose occurrence is asserted without generating a contradiction (e.g.
to assert *Mary killed him but he didn't die.).* A similar phenomenon has
been observed for our more familiar Romance and Germanic languages, albeit
for a very restricted set of verbs only, such as double object verbs
(Oehrle 1976, Gropen et al. 1989, Beavers 2010, cf. *Mary explained the
problem to him, and nevertheless he didn’t understand it*).

This workshop explores a correlation, gone to a large extent unnoticed in
the literature, between the availability of non-culminating construals for
accomplishments and the control of the agent over the described event. The
generalization put forth, which we call the*Agent Control Hypothesis* (ACH,
Demirdache & Martin 2013), is that nonculminating readings of
accomplishment predicates require the predicate’s external argument to be
associated with “agenthood” properties.

Evidence for the ACH is provided by Salish languages, as discussed by Bar-el
et al. 2005, Kiyota 2008, or Jacobs 2011: while so called ‘control’
perfective transitives do not give rise to culmination entailments,
non-control/causatives (Saanich, St'at'imcets) or limited control (
Skwxwúmesh) entail culmination.

Moreover, for around fifty French and German verbs, Martin & Schäfer 2012 &
2013 observe that when we replace the agent subject in (1) with a (pure)
causer as in (2), the non-culminating reading disappears:
(1)  Marie lui expliqua le problème, et pourtant il ne le comprit pas.
(agent subject)
‘Marie explained the problem to him, and nevertheless he didn’t understand
it.’

(2)  Ce résultat lui expliqua le problème de l’analyse, # pourtant il ne le
comprit pas. (causer subject)
‘This result made him understand the problem of the analysis, and
nevertheless he didn’t understand it.’

The ACH is also supported by the observation that in many languages from
unrelated families, completive markers can also be used to indicate that
the action is performed non-intentionally/inadvertently (Fauconnier 2011,
2012).  Another piece of evidence is provided by the correlation argued for
in Germanic languages between the licensing of causer subjects and the
'resultativity' of the verbal predicate (Folli & Harley 2005, Travis 2005,
Schäfer 2012): while causers are generally fine with bi-eventive verbs,
they are claimed to be acceptable as subjects of mono-eventive verbs only
if these are augmented with a resultative phrase.

The outstanding question, however, is defining the relevant notion of
(agent) control (see Jacobs for critical discussion of this issue in
Skwxwúmesh). *What properties of being an agent are relevant for canceling
culmination entailments*? Should we discriminate, for instance, agent-like
instruments from causer-like instruments and, furthermore, among causers,
between natural forces, events/states, or non-acting humans?

The workshop welcomes papers putting to test, on empirical, theoretical or
experimental grounds, the Agent Control Hypothesis, as well as papers on
related issues raised by non-culminating accomplishments:



   - To what extent does the ACH hold cross-linguistically and, if so, what
   are the properties of agenthood relevant for cancelling culmination
   inferences?
   - How do the analyses that have been proposed for non-culminating
   construals (e.g. modal, aspectual, scalar accounts) fare in accounting for
   the ACH?
   - Does the ACH hold for the various subtypes of non-culminating readings
   distinguished so far in the literature (e.g. 'failed attempt' vs. 'partial
   success', Tatevosov & Ivanov 2009)? What are the different ways in which
   culmination can be cancelled, across predicate types and languages? To what
   extent is the typology of non-culminating readings relevant for the ACH?
   - How is the typology of predicates that allow non-culminating readings
   across languages characterized? Which verbs allow/exclude/favour a given
   non-culminating reading? How can we account for variation across languages
   or speakers?
   - How is the difference between the non-culminating and culminating
   readings of a verb reflected in morphosyntax, aspect, argument structure,
   event structure, information structure? What cross-linguistic
   generalizations emerge?
   - Is there experimental evidence from child or adult languages to bear
   on the ACH? This question is all the more interesting since there is
   converging crosslinguistic evidence that children as old as 5 tend to
   construe inherently culminating verbs as non-culminating (van Hout 1998,
   2008, Gropen et al. 1991, Wittek 2002, 2008), but virtually all studies on
   the acquisition* *of culmination entailments are exclusively based on
   sentences with agentive subjects (Hodgson 2006, 2010 being an exception).


*Invited speakers:*

Leora Bar-El (University of Montana, tbc)

Jean-Pierre Koenig (Buffalo University)


Submissions should indicate that they are intended for Workshop 2: 'Agent
control over non-culminating events'


Contributors are asked to submit their abstract (max. 500 words, excluding
bibliography and figures) using the following website:

www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=chronos11

Deadline for abstract submission is October 31, 2013.

*Scientific committee*
Daniel Altshuler (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)
Leora Bar-El (University of Montana)
Henry Davis (University of British Columbia)
Atle Grønn (Oslo University)
Peter Jacobs (University of Victoria)
Hans Kamp (University of Stuttgart)
Jean-Pierre Koenig (Buffalo University)
Oana Lungu (Université de Nantes)
Lisa Matthewson (University of British Columbia)
Christopher Piñón (Université de Lille 3)
Florian Schäfer (University of Stuttgart)
Sergei Tatevosov (Moscow State University)


The workshop is organized by Hamida Demirdache (LLING, Nantes) and Fabienne
Martin (SFB 732, Stuttgart)


*Bibliography*

Altshuler, Daniel. 2013. “There is no neutral aspect”, Proceedings of
Semantics and Linguistic Theory 23: 40-62.
Bar-El, L., Davis, H., & Matthewson, L. (2005). On Non-Culminating
Accomplishments. In Proceedings of the 35th annual meeting of the North
East Linguistic Society (NELS 35) 1. 87-102.
Beavers, J. (2010). Aspectual Analysis of Ditransitive Verbs of Caused
Possession in English. Journal of Semantics 28. 1–54.
Demirdache, H. & Martin, F. 2013. Agent control over non-culminating
events, Ms.
Fauconnier, S. (2012). Constructional effects of inanimate Agents: a
typological study,Doctoral Dissertation, University of Leuven.
Fauconnier, S. (2013). Completives as markers of non-volitionality. Folia
Linguistica 47 (1).
Folli, R., & Harley, H. (2005). Flavors of v. In Aspectual inquiries.
Springer. 95-120.
*Hodgson, M. J. (2010). Locatum Structures and the Acquisition of
Telicity. Language
Acquisition 17(3), Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 155-182.*
Jacobs, P. W. (2011). Control in Skwxwúmesh.  Doctoral Dissertation,
University of British  Columbia.
Kiyota, M. (2008). Situation aspect and viewpoint aspect: From Salish to
Japanese, Doctoral Dissertation, University of British Columbia.
Koenig, J.P. & Chief, L. (2008). Scalarity and State-Changes in Mandarin,
Hindi, Tamil, and  Thai. In O. Bonami and P. Cabredo Hofherr (eds.),
Empirical Issues in Syntax and  Semantics 7, Editions du CNRS. 241-262.
Koenig, J. P., & Muansuwan, N. (2000). How to End Without Ever Finishing:
Thai Semi–perfectivity. Journal of Semantics 17(2). 147-182.
Martin, F., & Schäfer, F. (2012). The modality of offer and other
defeasible causative verbs. Proceedings of the 30th West Coast Conference
on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, USA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
248-258.
Tatevosov, S., & Ivanov, M. (2009). Event structure of non-culminating
accomplishments. In L. Hogeweg, H. de Hoop & A. Malchukov (eds.),
Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect, and Modality, John Benjamins
Publishing Company. 83-129.
Oehrle, R. T. (1976). The grammatical status of the English dative
alternation, Doctoral Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Schäfer, F. (2012). Two Types of External Argument Licensing–The Case of
Causers. Studia Linguistica, 66(2), 128-180.
Singh, M. (1998). On the semantics of the perfective aspect. Natural
Language Semantics, Kluwer Academic Publisher, 6(2). 171-199.
Travis, L. (2005). Agents and causes in Malagasy and Tagalog. In N.
Erteschik-Shir & T. R. Rapoport (eds.), The Syntax of Aspect, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
*Wittek, A. (2002). Learning the meaning of change-of-state verbs: A case
study of German child language. Berlin: De Gruyter*
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