CAS LX 502
4b. Tense and aspect
5.1-5.2
Situations
• We can think of sentences as referring to
situations (events, states, eventualities).
• A sentence like Pat opened the door can be
thought of as meaning
• ‘There is an event, it is an opening, it affects the
door, and it is instigated by Pat.’
Tense
• Events take place in time, and language uses tense
to situate events in time. (deictic, like a pronoun)
• Pat sang the national anthem.
• (The singing event was in the past—before now)
• Pat will sing the national anthem.
• (The singing event is in the future—after now)
• Pat is singing the national anthem.
• (The singing event is now)
Now
Situation types
• States: static and unchanging
• Individual-level:
• Pat is tall.
• Pat knows French.
• Stage-level:
• Pat is hungry.
• Pat is bored.
• Events: dynamic, involving motion/change
• Pat is pushing the cart into the corner.
Tense vs. aspect
• Tense locates a situation in time, aspect describes
the internal temporal structure of the situation.
• Completed (perfect)
• Pat had eaten a sandwich.
• Pat has eaten a sandwich.
• Pat will have eaten a sandwich.
• Ongoing (progressive)
• Pat was eating a sandwich.
• Pat is eating a sandwich.
• Pat will be eating a sandwich.
Classifying situations
• States (want, love, hate, know, believe)
• Activities (run, walk, swim, push a cart)
• Accomplishments (run a mile, walk to the
store, paint a picture, draw a circle)
• Achievements (recognize, find, stop, reach
the top)
• Semelfactives (cough, knock) (don’t change
state)
Classifying situations
• The different situation types essentially
define the different kinds of “shadow” the
situation casts on the timeline.
Diagnosing situation types
• Statives and achievements are generally
incompatible with the progressive.
•
•
•
•
Pat knows French. Pat is hungry.
#Pat is knowing French. #Pat is being hungry.
#Pat is reaching the top.
Pat is walking. Pat is walking to the store.
• Individual-level statives don’t sound good in the
imperative.
• Be tall! Know French!
Lexical aspect vs.
sentence aspect
• Lexically, predicates have an inherent situation
type (aktionsart or lexical aspect).
• However, a sentence can denote a situation type
that differs from the lexical aspect of its predicate.
Structure also plays a role, sentence aspect can be
coerced.
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•
•
•
Pat knocked on the door. (achievement/semelfactive)
Pat is knocking on the door. (iterative, activity)
Pat drank beer. (activity)
Pat drank a beer. (accomplishment)
Inchoative vs. resultative
• Different predicates can also concentrate on
different parts of an event.
• Melting is inchoative, focuses on the beginning.
• The ice is melting. (The ice has melted).
• Baking a cake is resultative, focuses on the
endpoint.
• Pat is baking a cake. (Pat has not baked a cake).
Telicity
• An event that has a natural endpoint is said to be
telic. An event that does not is said to be atelic.
• Pat pushed the cart.
• Pat pushed the cart into the corner.
• Frame adverbials (in 5 minutes) and durative
adverbials (for 5 minutes) can usually distinguish
these:
• Pat pushed the cart (#in 5 minutes) (for 5 minutes).
• Pat pushed the cart into the corner (in 5 minutes) (#for
5 minutes).
Aspect and telicity
• Even for a telic event (cross the street), the
sentence aspect can affect whether a
sentence implies that the endpoint was
reached.
• Pat crossed the street.
• Pat has crossed the street.
• Pat was crossing the street.
Aside: Verbs of creation
• Suppose Pat dumps some flour into a
mixing bowl.
• We can say that Pat is making pancakes or
that Pat is making a cake.
• Which is it?
The house Jack London was
building when he died.
•
In northern California, one can visit Jack London State Park and
see the house that Jack London was building when he died. At least
this is what the tourist guides say. It isn’t much of a house—only a
foundation and parts of some walls. But native speakers of English
call it a house. Ordinary language seems to be governed here by
something like Plato’s theory of forms: material things that “aspire
after” ideals are named after those ideals, in spite of their failure to
live up to the ideal itself. In short, people describe unfinished houses
as “houses,” and my analysis assumes that this is the correct usage.
The problem is not ontological—everyone agrees that the thing in
question exists. The issue is whether it is a house. (Parsons 1990:174)
• Cf also Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See, p. 146.
Predicates and objects
• If we think about the denotation of apples as
compared to an apple, only the latter has a definite
boundary. How big is an apple? How big is
apples? Similarly, how big is soup?
• Events are sort of like this too. A telic event has a
size, a boundary. Reach the top vs. climb.
• We can think of events as sort of like abstract
individuals.
• I saw Pat eat lunch.
• Fido’s barking kept me awake.
Mass and count
• Nouns can be distinguished into two types, those
that can be counted (count), and those that can’t
(mass).
• I have two tomatoes.
• #I have two barleys.
• One thing that differentiates them is what happens
if you cut them in half:
• If you divide your tomato, neither resulting thing is a
tomato.
• If you divide your barley, both resulting things are
barley.
Homogeneity
• Soup + soup = soup
• Tomato + tomato = 2 tomatoes.
• We can call the property that mass nouns have homogeneity.
• Pretty much the same property can be said to hold of states
and activities, but not accomplishments or achievements.
• Eating + eating = eating
• Being tall + being tall = being tall
• Walking to the store + walking to the store = walking to the store
twice.
• Finding a quarter + finding a quarter = finding two quarters
Combining predicates and objects
• Interestingly, for something like eat (an
activity, homogeneous), if it is combined
with a homogeneous object, the result is a
homogeneous activity, but when it is
combined with a bounded object, the result
is a bounded event (accomplishment).
• Pat ate soup (for an hour) (#in an hour).
• Pat ate the apple (??for an hour) (in an hour).
Coercion/shifting
• Things that are normally count nouns can be
treated as mass nouns if coerced, and vice
versa.
• There is too much apple in the salad.
• I ordered two soups.
• And, then:
• I ate a soup in five minutes.
• I ate apple for five minutes.
Sentences as denoting events
• One way of looking at what sentences mean
is as event descriptions.
• Pat ate an apple.
• (There was) an eating, it affected an apple, it
was instigated by Pat.
• Like definite descriptions denote
individuals, sentences denote events.
• The student in the corner.
Sentences as denoting events
• Some events are described by Pat swam.
• Some of those are described by Pat swam fast.
• If we look at sentences in this way, we can
understand why Pat swam fast entails that Pat
swam. All of the events described by Pat swam
fast also fit the description of Pat swam.
•
•
•
•
Pat struck the door.
Pat struck the door violently.
Pat struck the door with a hammer.
Pat struck the door violently with a hammer.
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