Studies in the Composition and Decomposition of Event Predicates (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Book 93)

This detailed, perceptive addition to the linguistics literature analyzes the semantic components of event predicates, exploring their fine-grained elements as well as their agency in linguistic processing. The papers go beyond pure semantics to consider their varying influences of event predicates on argument structure, aspect, scalarity, and event structure. The volume shows how advances in the linguistic theory of event predicates, which have spawned Davidsonian and neo-Davidsonian notions of event arguments, in addition to - event structure - frameworks and mereological models for the eventuality domain, have sidelined research on specific sets of entailments that support a typology of event predicates. Addressing this imbalance in the literature, the work also presents evidence indicating a more complex role for scalar structures than currently assumed. It will enrich the work of semanticists, psycholinguists, and syntacticians with a decompositional approach to verb phrase structure Front Matter....Pages i-viii The (De)composition of Event Predicates....Pages 1-26 On the Criteria for Distinguishing Accomplishments from Activities, and Two Types of Aspectual Misfits....Pages 27-48 Lexicalized Meaning and Manner/Result Complementarity....Pages 49-70 Oriented Adverbs and Object Experiencer Psych-Verbs....Pages 71-97 Two Sources of Scalarity Within the Verb Phrase....Pages 99-123 Interaction of Telicity and Degree Gradation in Change of State Verbs....Pages 125-152 On Adverbs of (Space and) Time....Pages 153-193 The Processing Domain of Aspectual Interpretation....Pages 195-229 Event End-Point Primes the Undergoer Argument: Neurobiological Bases of Event Structure Processing....Pages 231-248 Back Matter....Pages 249-252 Boban Arsenijević, Berit Gehrke, Rafael Marín, Editors. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.