Abstract
In this Chapter I discuss the situation types at a conceptual level that holds across languages. I will consider the temporal properties, basic stereotypes, and derived patterns for each situation type. I will also discuss the type of sentences that realize the situation types, giving those syntactic characteristics that relate directly to their temporal schemata. The discussion will focus on English for specificity.
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The modern study of situation types begins with Ryle 1947 and Vendler 1967; see also Taylor 1977, Mourelatos 1978, Dowty 1979, Smith 1983. The notion of situation type has both conceptual and linguistic features: situation types are covert categories linguistically, in that they have a distinctive set of co-occurrence properties.
In the Aristotelian texts Metaphysics (1048b), the De Anima (417), and the Nichomachean ethics. See Kenney 1963, and Taylor 1977, for useful discussion of Aristotle’s theory and its relation to current ideas.
Mittwoch 1979 presents strong evidence for a durative feature in the grammar of English; Cochrane 1977 does the same for Serbo-Croatian and Russian in Cochrane 1977. The grammatical differences between instantaneous and durative events are particularly striking in Navajo (cf Chapter 11).
Agency is a complex concept, as much recent work has emphasized. Causation and volition are features of agency; they are separable grammatically in some languages, not in others. The grammatical correlates of agency include adverbials and imperatives. If a verb constellation allows volitional adverbials, and appears felicitously in imperatives, for instance, it is associated with an agentive event. There are also language-specific correlates of agency. For discussion of the thematic and syntactic notions of agency, see Dowty and Ladusaw (nd), Dowty 1987.
See Dowty 1979, Foley & van Valin 1984 for a different approach to causation and situation type. Dowty proposes an “aspect calculus” which builds causation and agency into the notion of situation type. The difference between Achievements and Accomplishments, in this approach, is that the former is inchoative and the latter has an additional causative element.
The subinterval property is discussed in Taylor 1977, and Dowty 1979. There are some questions as to how it applies to complex situations that occur over a period of time. Dowty 1979 argues convincingly that small periods spent doing something than the intended activity, e.g., working, do not count as falsifying the sub-interval property. There is also the question of how fine-grained an interval must be when a situation involves sub-stages such as steps (walking) or breaths (breathing).
I would like to thank Eser Taylan for drawing my attention to these facts about habituais.
Navajo verbs have subject and object pronominals which are coindexed with independent nominals in a sentence. There is an indefinite pronominal which produces a verb form about an activity involving objects. The following examples illustrate: (ii) has the indefinite pronominal form.
(i) dibé nanishkaad Sheep I am herding them
(ii) na’nishkaad I am doing the (sheep) herding
The second sentence is not compatible with a preceding nominal, that is, the object must remain unspecified.
The events classified here as Semelfactive are sometimes treated as a special subclass of Achievements, that is, instantaneous events that are not telic. They can also be considered as a subclass of atelic events or of Activities, since they are atelic events that are not durative.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Smith, C.S. (1991). Situation Aspect. In: The Parameter of Aspect. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7911-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7911-7_2
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