Activities: States or Events?

The general concepts of event and state are important to human beings as they manage in the world: they are helpful in recognizing dangerous and benign motion, situations that may result in changes of interest, etc. In the sentences of natural language these concepts are conveyed by four semantic categories proposed in Vendler (1957), known as Accomplishments, Achievements, States, and Activities. It is clear how three of these categories are related to the general concepts: the first two are events, the third are states. The status of the Activity category is less clear. Activities have something in common with each concept. I will argue here that Activities form a natural class with events, however. The argument is based on the behavior of sentences associated with the Activity concept in narrative and other sequential contexts. The keys to the argument are the property of dynamism and the contribution of the perfective viewpoint.

[1]  Anita Mittwoch.  In Defence of Vendler's Achievements , 1991 .

[2]  E. Hinrichs.  Temporal anaphora in discourses of english , 1986, Linguistics and Philosophy.

[3]  L. Weiskrantz,et al.  Thought Without Language , 1988 .

[4]  Zeno Vendler,et al.  Verbs and Times , 1957, The Language of Time - A Reader.

[5]  Alexander P. D. Mourelatos.  Events, processes, and states , 1978 .

[6]  Michael Herweg.  Perfective and imperfective aspect and the theory of events and states , 1991 .

[7]  Mark Steedman,et al.  Temporal Ontology in Natural Language , 1987, ACL.

[8]  Otto Jespersen,et al.  Modern English Grammar , 1910, The School Review.

[9]  Ilse Depraetere,et al.  On the necessity of distinguishing between (un)boundedness and (a)telicity , 1995 .

[10]  J Vanbenthem,et al.  The Logic of Aspect: An Axiomatic Approach , 1984 .

[11]  David R. Dowty,et al.  Word Meaning and Montague Grammar , 1979 .

[12]  Frank Schilder.  Temporal relations in English and German narrative discourse , 1997 .

[13]  GALIA HATAV,et al.  Aspects, Aktionsarten, and the time line , 1989 .

[14]  S Carlota,et al.  Dowty, David. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar: The Semantics of Verbs and Times in Generative Semantics and in Montague's PTQ. Dordrecht: Reidel. , 2005 .

[15]  O. Jespersen.  A modern English grammar on historical principles , 1928 .

[16]  R. Gelman.  First Principles Organize Attention to and Learning About Relevant Data: Number and the Animate‐Inanimate Distinction as Examples , 1990 .

[17]  Barry Taylor,et al.  Tense and continuity , 1977, Linguistics and Philosophy.

[18]  Ellen K. Eggers.  Temporal anaphora in discourse , 1990 .

[19]  Barbara H. Partee,et al.  Toward the Logic of Tense and Aspect in English , 2008 .

[20]  Carlota Smith.  A Theory of Aspectual Choice , 1983 .

[21]  Frank Vlach,et al.  The semantics of the progressive , 1981 .

[22]  David R. Dowty.  Tenses, time adverbs, and compositional semantic theory , 1982 .

[23]  B. L. Whorf.  Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf , 1956 .

[24]  Keith S. Donnellan,et al.  Action, Emotion And Will , 1965 .

[25]  James Pustejovsky,et al.  The syntax of event structure , 1991, Cognition.

[26]  J.F.A.K. van Benthem,et al.  Semantics and Contextual Expressions , 1989 .

[27]  Hans Reichenbach,et al.  Elements of symbolic logic , 1948 .

[28]  Manfred Krifka,et al.  Thematic Relations as Links between Nominal Reference and Temporal Constitution , 1992 .

[29]  Carlota S. Smith,et al.  The Parameter of Aspect , 1991 .

[30]  Greville G. Corbett,et al.  The Scope of Slavic Aspect , 1988 .

[31]  Terence Parsons,et al.  The progressive in English: Events, states and processes , 1989 .

[32]  H. Kamp,et al.  Tense in Texts , 1983 .

[33]  Carlota S. Smith.  The Vagueness of Sentences in Isolation , 2009 .

[34]  Manfred Krifka,et al.  Nominal Reference, Temporal Constitution and Quantification in Event Semantics , 1989 .

[35]  Christopher Piñón,et al.  An ontology for event semantics , 1995 .

[36]  Henk J. Verkuyl,et al.  A theory of aspectuality , 1993 .

[37]  Orvokki Heinämäki,et al.  Aspect in Finnish , 1984 .

[38]  S. Gelman,et al.  Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity In Cognition And Culture , 1994 .

[39]  A. Leslie.  Mapping the mind: ToMM, ToBY, and Agency: Core architecture and domain specificity , 1994 .

[40]  Emmon Bach,et al.  The algebra of events , 1986, The Language of Time - A Reader.

[41]  Orvokki Tellervo Heinämäki,et al.  Semantics of English temporal connectives , 1974 .

[42]  H. Dry.  THE MOVEMENT OF NARRATIVE TIME , 1983 .

[43]  W. Labov,et al.  Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. , 1997 .

[44]  David R. Dowty.  The effects of aspectual class on the temporal structure of discourse: semantics or pragmatics? , 1986, The Language of Time - A Reader.

[45]  Uwe Reyle,et al.  From discourse to logic , 1993 .

[46]  J. Tyson.  About time , 1996, Nature.

[47]  Frank Vlach.  Temporal adverbials, tenses and the perfect , 1993 .

[48]  J. Helm,et al.  Essays on the verbal and visual arts , 1968 .

[49]  B. Partee.  Nominal and temporal anaphora , 1984 .

[50]  Christoph Schwarze,et al.  Meaning, Use, and Interpretation of Language , 1983 .