Faculty of Humanities
Department of English
Course Number:37-993-01
Course Name: Adding in the domain of events
Lecturer: Dr. Yael Greenberg
Semester: II Times: Monday 10-14
Course description:
In this seminar will deal with the additive reading of the English particle more, and its
cross linguistic correlates. We will show that although more heads nominal elements
(more books), its semantics should be defined in terms of additivity in the domain of
eventualities. We will extend this event-based analysis to verbal additive more, where
more sums and measures lengths of run time or spatial paths of eventualities, and
discuss the compatibility of this particle with different aspectual classes. Finally, we will
compare the additive more with still and comparative more.
Course requirements: You are expected to actively participate in the discussions, read
all the material I assign, and be able to answer (at least) simple questions about it (e.g.
summarize the main points in it). There will be one presentation of a paper or part of a
paper during the semester (possibly in pairs). You should start thinking about a paper
topic towards the last third of the semester. You are expected to submit the paper
(usually a review of a theory / theories relevant to the topic of the seminar, and
application to new data / similar data in another language) towards the end of the
summer break.
Grade composition:
Participation – 10%
Presentation - 20 %
Seminar Paper – 70 %
Detailed syllabus:
Week 1: Introduction, the data and the puzzles (assertion and presupposition of additive
more)
Week 2-3: Background: Events and Degrees in semantics
Week 4-5: Nominal additive more
Week 6-7 Verbal additive more
Week 8-9 Comparative and additive more
Weak 10-11: still and additive more
Weak 12-13 Summary and discussion of paper topics
Bibliography:
Beck, S. and von Stechow, A, (2007), ‘Pluractional Adeverbials’, Journal of Semantics,
24 (3): 215-254.
Filip, H., and Rothstein, S. 2005. Telicity as a semantic parameter. In The Princeton
University Meeting, J. Lavine, S. Franks, H. Filip and M. Tasseva-Kurktchieva (eds), 139156. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.
Greenberg, Y. (2009A), ‘Presupposition Accommodation and Informativity
Considerations with Aspectual
still”, Journal of
Semantics, 26:1, 49-86.
Greenberg Y. (2009B) Additivity in the Domain of Eventualities. In the Proceedings of
LoLa 10.
Greenberg, Y. (2010) Additivity in the Domain of Eventualities (or, Oliver Twist's More),
in Martin Prinzhorn, Viola Schmitt and Sarah Zobel (eds.): Proceedings of Sinn und
Bedeutung 14, Vienna, pp. 151 – 167.
Kennedy, C. and B. Levin (2008) ``Measure of Change: The Adjectival Core of Degree
Achievements'', in L. McNally and C. Kennedy, eds., Adjectives and Adverbs: Syntax,
Semantics and Discourse, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 156-182.
Krifka, M. (1998). The origins of telicity. In S. Rothstein (ed.), Events and Grammar.
Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Mittwoch, A. (2010), ‘Event Measurement and Containment’, in Rapoport Hova, M., E.
Doron and I. Sichel, (eds.) Syntax, Lexical Semantics and event Structure, Oxford
University Press.
Nakanishi, K. (2007). Measurement in the nominal and verbal domains. Linguistics and
Philosophy, 30, 235-276.
Rothstein, Susan. (2008). “Telicity, Atomicity and the Vendlerian Classification of Verbs.”
in S. Rothstein (ed.). Theoretical and Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Semantics of
Aspect. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 275-314.
Thomas, G. (2009) Incremental Comparison, a paper presented at Sinn und Bedeutung
14.
Thomas, G. (2010) Incremental more. Proceedings of SALT 20 (p. 233-250)
Thomas, G, (2011) Incremental More. In Bonami & Cabrado Hofherr (eds.), Proceedings
of CSSP 8, p. 487-510.