Fine-Grained Event Structure Representations for Language: Aspect, Force Dynamics, Mental Spaces

This presentation reviews current work in a project to develop event structure representations for all of the verb classes in VerbNet (verbs.colorado.edu/verbnet) based on the “three-dimensional” representations introduced in Croft (2009a, 2012, 2015). The three dimensions include continuous dimensions of time (t) and (change in) qualitative state (q) for aspect, and a third “dimension” representing a causal chain of force dynamic interactions between participants. The event expressed by a verb is decomposed into a separate subevent for each participant; each participant has an aspectual contour representing what it does/what happens to it over time, and each participant’s subevent is in a force dynamic relationship with the other participants’ subevents, forming the causal chain. An example is given in Figure 1.