Aspectual competition in Russian as
bidirectional optimization
Atle Grønn, University of Oslo
FDSL-6.5
December 2, 2006
1 Introduction
(1) Kto čital ipf Vojnu i mir?
Who has read War and Peace?
Existential Ipf (obščefaktičeskoe značenie)
(2) A: Krasivo ukrasilipf elku.
B: Kto ukrašalipf ?
A: They decorated the Christmas tree beautifully.
B: Who decorated it?
Presuppositional Ipf (obščefaktičeskoe značenie)
(3) Ty otkryvalipf okno?
Did you open the window? (or, rather: ’Did you have the window open?’)
Two-ways Ipf (dvunapravlennoe značenie)
• Aspect as a game
– between Speaker and Hearer
– between Ipf and Pf
• Neo-Gricean reasoning:
– The Q-principle: Be informative – Say as much as you can (Pf?)
– The I-principle: Economy – Don’t say more than you have to (Ipf?)
• Proposal: To make these ideas more precise in bidirectional optimality theory,
combining pragmatics and semantics.
• Challenge: to explain the use of Ipf in aspectual competition (complete event
interpretations).
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2 A compositional treatment of aspect and tense
• Aspects as temporal relations between the assertion time and event cf. (Klein
1995).
(4) Časov v šest’ večera poobedalip . (Internet)
We had dinner around six p.m..
(4’): ‘e ⊆ t’
z
|
dinner(e)
}|
{
{z
}
6 p.m.(t)
(5) My obedalii , kogda u moego druga proizošelp pristup.(Internet)
We were having dinner, when my friend had a heart attack.
(5’): ‘t ⊆ e’
when my friend had a heart attack(t)
z }| {
|
{z
}
dinner(e)
(6) Ty segodnja obedali v restorane! (Internet)
You had dinner in a restaurant today!
(6’): ‘e ⊆ t’
z
|
dinner(e)
}|
{
{z
}
t = today ∩ ‘the whole past’
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• A standard, DRT-analysis of aspectual operators (Kratzer 1998), (Grønn 2004):
– Pf (or Ipf in its complete event interpretation) ⇒ λP λt[e | P (e), e ⊆ t]
– Ipf in its incomplete event interpretation ⇒ λP λt[e | P (e), t ⊆ e]
• Tense is a function from a frame time to an assertion time.
• Kratzer’s definite theory of tense:
– Past(t1 )(tnow ) denotes the intersection between t1 and the past of tnow ;
the maximal interval in t1 prior to tnow .
Figure 1: Calculating the assertion time
assertion time = Past(frame time)(tnow )
λt Past(t)(tnow )
frame adverbial/ tcontext / t∞
Figure 2: The interval of the assertion time resulting from past tense
|
6
?
z
{z
‘the whole past’
t1 [‘frame time’]
}|
3
tnow
}
6
?
{
tnow
3 Blocking of the factual Ipf in BOT
• F = {Pf, Ipf}
• M = {e ⊆ t, t ⊆ e}
• GEN = F × M – {<Pf, t ⊆ e >}
• Conditional informativity (simplified):
– The function inf is inversely related to probability:
– inf (m/f) =
1
Prob(m/f)
−1
Why the processual/progressive is considered the Hauptbedeutung of the Ipf:
inf (m/f)
Pf
Ipf
e⊆t
⇒0
1
t⊆e
∞
⇒1
Table 1: A bidirectional OT-tableau for Russian aspect
• The underspecified semantics of the Ipf is equally compatible with both inclusion
relations, but the complete event interpretation is blocked by the strongly optimal
pair <Pf, e ⊆ t >.
Theorem 1
Whenever a progressive/processual interpretation t ⊆ e is possible, a complete event
interpretation e ⊆ t is not available for the Ipf.
(7) Kogda pozvonilpf Boris Georgievič, my s Iroj gotoviliipf dokumenty.
When Boris Georgievič called, Ira and I were preparing (not available reading: had prepared) the documents.
• The OT-reasoning correctly predicts that the progressive interpretation is the only
one available, <Ipf, t ⊆ e > being the winner.
• Hence, in order to express a relative past reading with a complete event interpretation in constructions like (7), the Pf must be used.
4 Context-sensitive BOT: the return of the factual Ipf
• <F,M> is relativized to the speaker and hearer’s Common Ground (or, better,
input assignments in dynamic semantics)
• GENc = {<CG, Pf, e ⊆ t >, <CG, Ipf, e ⊆ t >, <CG, Ipf, t ⊆ e > }
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• Constraints:
– Do not accomodate (= Avoid introduction of new discourse referents)
– Cohere (here: = Maximize temporal relations)
– Economy (here: = Preference for the unmarked form)
• Links to pragmatic theories:
– Maximize temporal relations (Q-principle)
– Preference for the unmarked form (I-principle)
– Cohere + Economy = Relevance: ”Of two utterances that take the same
amount of processing, it is the one with most contextual implications that
will be the more relevant; and of two utterances which have the same number of contextual implications, it is the one which takes the least amount of
processing that will be the more relevant.” (Sperber and Wilson 1982, cited
from (van Rooy 2003))
(1)
*Accomodate
Cohere
<CG, Pf, e ⊆ t >
Economy
*
⇒<CG, Ipf, e ⊆ t >
<CG, Ipf, t ⊆ e >
*
Table 2: A BOT-tableau for ’Who has read War and Peace?’ – existential Ipf
(2)
*Accomodate
Cohere
<CG, Pf, e ⊆ t >
Economy
*
⇒<CG, Ipf, e ⊆ t >
<CG, Ipf, t ⊆ e >
*!
Table 3: A BOT-tableau for ’Who decorated it?’ – presuppositional Ipf
(3)
*Accomodate
Cohere
⇒<CG, Pf, e ⊆ t >
*
<CG, Ipf, e ⊆ t >
<CG, Ipf, t ⊆ e >
Economy
*
*
Table 4: A BOT-tableau for ’Did you open the window?’ – two-ways Ipf
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5 Deblocking – second round optimization
• What is deblocking?
(8) ??John is eating cow (better: beef)
(9) Hindus are not allowed to eat cow.
• The lexicalised ’beef’ blocks ’cow’ from being coerced into a mass term. However, in special contexts deblocking allows for ’cow’ being used as a mass term
with a special meaning.
• Canonical vs. non-canonical meaning (example: Pf vs. two-ways Ipf):
– m1 = e ⊆ t + target state validity (from lexical semantics, default telicity)
– m2 = e ⊆ t + cancellation of target state
CG as in (3)
Pf
Ipf
m1
⇒
Blocked
m2
Blocked
→
Table 5: A weakly bidirectional OT-tableau for ’Did you open the window?’
• The form Pf is better than Ipf (cf. round 1). The canonical meaning m1 is better
than the non-canonical m2.
• Weak BOT gives us two superoptimal pairs.
• It is trivial that <Pf, m1> is optimal (cf. round 1).
• Due to a division of pragmatic labour, <Ipf, m2> is also optimal in weak BOT,
since:
– (S) there is no F, such that <Ipf, m2>≺<F, m2> (given (H)) and
– (H) there is no M, such that <Ipf, m2>≺<Ipf, M> (given (S))
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CG as in (2) (CG |= e ⊆ t)
Ipf
Pf
e ⊆ t (in presupposition)
⇒
Blocked
e ⊆ t (in assertion)
Blocked
→
Table 6: A weakly bidirectional OT-tableau for ’Who decorated it?’
• Neither of the two aspects starts out as ”presuppositional” or ”assertoric”, but
• weak BOT accounts for the emerging polarization whereby the factual Ipf gets
its presuppositional reading
• and the division of labor allows for the speaker to reintroduce the event at the assertoric level through a perfective verb, even if the conditions hold which would
allow a presupposition to be satisfied.
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References
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