Verb catalog - lexical aspect

[Stephen Carlson]

- Running with the Prototype Theory idea, I'm still not quite sure how it applies? Are we expecting a particular verb to be the most prototypically stative verb? Are we thinking that some use of eg. the Aorist is the most prototypical use of the aorist (with, of course, other prototypical uses running along with it)?

These questions are difficult to understand. For example, I don't understand what you mean by "Aorist" with a capital A.

In this case, it just means that my fingers somehow hit a shift key at an inappropriate time.

OK, now I'm confused by what "the [a]orist is the most prototypical use of the aorist," then. It sounds tautological.

[TimNelson]

(quotes snipped as per PHPBB regulations)

OK, now I'm confused by what "the [a]orist is the most prototypical use of the aorist," then. It sounds tautological.

Hmm. I was writing like I talk. How about if I were to write "Are we thinking that some particular use of the aorist (to select a grammatical form at random) is the most prototypical use of the aorist...". That should be a better written style. Mike Aubrey has already said that the answer is "No" (he used transitive verbs as an example, but I assume that this also applies to aorists).

[TimNelson]

MAubrey posted at http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... 0&start=20, and I'm responding here; you'll see why.

The fast answer to the question in terms of how I understand this verb is this:

ἐλθεῖν's prototypical instantiations are certainly telic. However, telicity is not a schematic feature of its larger usage...just like flight is a necessarily feature for the prototypical bird. It's required for the prototype, but is not obligatory for the schema as a whole: penguins and Emus would be very disappointed if it was. There's always a prototype and there's always a schema. And they rarely (and by rarely, I probably mean "never") coincide.

Does this mean, then that a verb catalogue should mark lexical attributes of verbs, but all of these attributes should be considered cancellable under some circumstances?

[RandallButh]

MAubrey posted at http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... 0&start=20, and I'm responding here; you'll see why.

The fast answer to the question in terms of how I understand this verb is this:

ἐλθεῖν's prototypical instantiations are certainly telic. However, telicity is not a schematic feature of its larger usage...just like flight is a necessarily feature for the prototypical bird. It's required for the prototype, but is not obligatory for the schema as a whole: penguins and Emus would be very disappointed if it was. There's always a prototype and there's always a schema. And they rarely (and by rarely, I probably mean "never") coincide.

Does this mean, then that a verb catalogue should mark lexical attributes of verbs, but all of these attributes should be considered cancellable under some circumstances?

Probably.

[MAubrey]

Does this mean, then that a verb catalogue should mark lexical attributes of verbs, but all of these attributes should be considered cancellable under some circumstances?

See my most recent post in that thread for more discussion.

Beyond that...As Randall says the answer is "probably", but depending on the verb. Some are more cancellable than others.

As one who has attempted such a catalog, my own opinion is that the endeavor is very nearly a lost cause. Appendix A of my thesis was a tentative attempt at a partial catalog and my external reader comment on it when he got to that point was:

Because telicity is not determined solely by the lexical semantics of verbs, and because I have been down this road myself, I am not going to give a whole lot of credence or attention to this appendix [My emphasis]. I worked in a language in which predicate types were signaled by verbal morphology, but it would only take me so far. As you know, definite undergoer arguments can turn an activity verb into an active achievement. Whether a sentence is telic is determined by the lexical semantics of the verb, obligatory and optional arguments, and even adjuncts at times.
Thus, after a brief look at what you have done, I’m skipping down to Appendix B. Chances are there is a typo or two in this section which I will miss.

He isn't wrong. And I came to that same conclusion myself fairly early on in the attempt. The purpose of that appendix ended up being more about documenting my data than a successful presentation of a catalog of predicate classes.

[TimNelson]

OK, good to know. Are there attributes which are less problematic? I'm thinking of transitivity, for example, and maybe stativity.

Btw, that post (on the other thread) was really helpful, although I had to read up on causatives to make sense of it (I was thinking of causatives as 3-argument verbs, like the Hebrew sometimes has, but I have a better handle on it now, I think.

[MAubrey]

OK, good to know. Are there attributes which are less problematic? I'm thinking of transitivity, for example, and maybe stativity.

Btw, that post (on the other thread) was really helpful, although I had to read up on causatives to make sense of it (I was thinking of causatives as 3-argument verbs, like the Hebrew sometimes has, but I have a better handle on it now, I think.

Yes.

Here are the standard features for predicate classes (transitivity is an important but separate issue):

State: [+static], [−dynamic], [−telic], [−punctual]
Activity [−static], [+dynamic], [−telic], [−punctual]
Accomplishment [−static], [−dynamic], [+telic], [−punctual]
Semelfactive [−static], [±dynamic], [−telic], [+punctual]
Achievement [−static], [−dynamic], [+telic], [+punctual]
Active achievement [−static], [+dynamic], [+telic], [−punctual]

Basically, the more complicated things get, the less likely they're going to be lexical. That's why states are easy since they're totally different from everything else.

[TimNelson]

Yes.

Here are the standard features for predicate classes (transitivity is an important but separate issue):

State: [+static], [−dynamic], [−telic], [−punctual]
Activity [−static], [+dynamic], [−telic], [−punctual]
Accomplishment [−static], [−dynamic], [+telic], [−punctual]
Semelfactive [−static], [±dynamic], [−telic], [+punctual]
Achievement [−static], [−dynamic], [+telic], [+punctual]
Active achievement [−static], [+dynamic], [+telic], [−punctual]

Basically, the more complicated things get, the less likely they're going to be lexical. That's why states are easy since they're totally different from everything else.

I'm tempted to suggested Essives as [+static] [+telic], just to make things difficult . Your comment about complicatedness was helpful; thanks .

[TimNelson]

Just one more question arising from this thread (or should this be a separate thread?)

People have mentioned prototype theory, which has been useful, and which has been contrasted with a definition-based model (is this definition-based model the "Semantic feature-comparison model"?). Is prototype theory being distinguished here also from exemplar theory, or are they close enough to the same thing for our purposes?

[Stephen Carlson]

I'm tempted to suggested Essives as [+static] [+telic], just to make things difficult . Your comment about complicatedness was helpful; thanks .

What do you mean by "essive"? In my reading, they seemed to be synonymous with statives. I have also seen things that are both static and telic, though not under the name of "essive." Such a beast works with some definitions of telicity but not others.