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THE FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES OF THE VERB.

1. TENSE

TENSE AND TEMPORAL INTERPRETATION. Tense is a deictic category which places events in time, dealing with the chronological order of events. Tense is grammaticized in English The meaning and the structure of sentences is compositional. The conference begins tomorrow. They derive from the meaning of each element in the sentence and the relation established between them. You are here today. The situation is placed in speech time. Speech time is central for temporal interpretation. We define: present tense, past tense, future tense relative to speech time. PAST--------X(ST)-------FUTURE

Temporal interpretation is compositional: it derives from the value of the tense morpheme and the value of the time adverbial, if any. It is the result of the convayed by tense markers and time adverbials if any. The conference begins [=present tense] next week [future time adverbial]. Tense locates events in time; it is a grammatical category in English where it has distinct morphological markers. There are 3 distinct tense markers: /z/ (with its allomorphs /iz/,/∫/,/z/) for present tense, /d/ with its allomorphs /t/,/id/,/d/ for past tense and ‘will’ for the future. According to some linguists ‘will’ is not a temporal marker but a modal verb. The morpheme is an atomic unit that carries meaning and has phonological and morphological properties; the morpheme is the invariant. The allomorph is phonologically condition variant of a morpheme; the free morpheme (a, the) is independent from the word it accompanies and the bound morpheme is attached to the word.

TEMPORAL INTERPRETATION AND TIME ADVERBIALS. Time adverbials is an umbrella term for all the non-verbal espressions which refer to

time relations: adverb phrases (tomorrow, today, right now, the day after tomorrow), prepositional phrases with temporal value (on Monday, in June, at 8:00, before noon) and adverbial clauses of time (John was playing chess when the phone rang . ).

The role of time adverbials. Time adverbials @can clarify and/or add meaning or even empose a particular interpretation. (John is at home this week.), @can disambiguate a sentence: John is leaving right now. (imposes that he is leaving right now), @ can impose a particular time interpretation (In 1066 [tadv =past] William conquers Britain.).

Classification of time adverbials. Deictic/anchored time adverbials are speech time oriented tadv whose interpretation is determined relative to speech time (now, this morning, last year). They are compatible with certain tense markers: I arrived yesterday.

Non-deictic/unanchored time adverbials are time adverbials which are not in an explicit relation to the speech time. They have a meaning which is not related with the speech

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time (in June, on Friday). They are compatible with various tense markers: We are leaving in June. They arrived on Friday. (these are not related to the speech time).

Adverbials and aspectual meaning: there are durational time adverbs (for three days Ex. The children slept for ten hours.), frequency time adverbials (frequently, often, usually, twice Ex. They often ask me about you.) and completive time adverbials (resultative) (in two hours). Complex time adverbials behave as one single unit and yield a more exact temporal specification. They left on Friday in the afternoon, after lunch, at about 3 p.m. Placement of time adverbs and temporal interpretation. Yesterday John had eaten the cake.(the event took place before yesterday).

Reichenbach: Tense is a complex of three points, temporally ordered with respect to one another: Speech Time (ST), Event Time (ET), Reference Time (RT). Taking into account only the relations between ET&ST is not enough. Yesterday (RT) John had eaten all the cookies. ET before ‘yesterday’. RT indicates the point in time which the speaker chooses as the time relative to which he/she locates the situation in time. RT is the time about which a specific claim is made/ the point in time which the speaker chose as the time relative to which the situation is located in time. It can be the same as ST (present) John is here now. (ST=now, RT=ST, ET=RT→ ET=ST), future Next week you will have been students for a month. (RT before ST) or past When I came back they had already sold the car.(RT after ST). RT is required to account for the semantics of complex tenses, where ET is different from RT (John has eaten an apple. John had eaten an apple. John will have eaten the apple by the time you come back.). Each tense is analysed in terms of two main components: the reference component: the relation between ST and RT and the relation component: the relation between RT and ET. The relation between ST and ET is not a direct one. It is mediated by RT. The meaning of the predicate is relevant for the way in which we understand the relation between ET and RT. Next week John will have visited London. (ST=now, RT after ST, ET before RT →ET after ST – ‘have’ signals ET before RT).

2. ASPECT. ASPECT AND TEMPORAL INTERPRETATION.Situations have their own internal structure which is relevant for temporal interpretation.

Situations can be: homogeneous (John is running→the subsets are alike.) or non-homogeneous (John is drawing a circle.), complete (John has fixed the car.) or in progress (John is fixing the car.), with or without a natural endpoint (to rain vs. to draw a circle).

Aspect is the category which distinguishes between complete/incomplete events, single/repeated events, between utterances that refer to either the beginning, the middle or the end of a situation, informing whether the event can be presented as a single whole or whether the situation can be divided into various individual phases. It describes “the quality of an event while it is observed by the speaker, the way in which the speaker ‘sees’ the event” (Dutescu-Coliban, 1983: 351). Aspect is non-deictic and not oriented to ST.

Tense vs. Aspect. Tense denotes the ‘situation external time’ while aspect refers to the situation internal time. Aspect describes the temporal quality or condition of an event with

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respect to itself, in terms of such things as inception, repetition, completion, duration, punctuality etc. To speak of aspect is to speak of a time-ordering separate from tense that deals with the internal temporal structuring (the relative duration, inception and completion of verbal activities). Aspectual information can be: morphological (grammatical aspect/viewpoint aspect) or lexical (semantic aspect/ situation-type aspect).

Viewpoint aspect conveys information about the way in which the speaker VIEWS the situation. ([+/- perfective],[+/- progressive]). Viewpoint aspect is grammaticized aspect, being signaled by grammatical markers associated with the verb of the sentence.

The imperfective viewpoint is the information that the sentence refers to stages of an event. The situation is not perceived as complete, with definite endpoints, the focus being on an internal stage/on internal stages which lack both the initial and the final boundary. The situation is perceived as open: Something was slithering towards him along the dark corridor floor. [be+ing] = the imperfective viewpoint. Stages can be ‘progressive’ or ‘continuous’ and can refer to an incomplete situation. No boundaries can be detected, the event does not end, does not culminate, it is simply going on. It ‘holds’. The sentence has a certain connotation of dynamism and the predicate denotes only a ‘time-space slice’ of an ‘open’ situation whose limits are indefinite. There is more than one possible outcome which gives the progressive a modal value. John is building a house.The imperfective viewpoint presents situations as open, focusing on the internal stages of an event in progress. It is the –ing morpheme which merges to the lexical verb which is the marker of imperfectivity. The auxiliary be will be analysed as a mere carrier of Tense and Agreement.

The perfective viewpoint. The perfective views the situation as closed; the event is presented as having an initial and final point, the focus being mainly on the completion or termination of the event prior to RT. The situation is often presented as a whole, with no explicit reference to its internal stages. John has built two houses.There are morphological markers of perfectivity: John has known Mary since Christmas.John reached the lighthouse. [St=now, RT prior to ST(past), ET=RT→ET prior to ST(historical event)] John had reached the lighthouse.[ST=now, RT prior to ST(past), ET prior to RT→ET prior to ST (historical event)]. Aspectual information should be kept distinct from existential status. Viewpoint aspect focuses on the relation which obtains between ET and RT. Whenever [have -en] is present, ET is interpreted as istantiated before RT. Whether the situation is complete or not at RT depends on the lexical meaning of the verb. If the verb is telic, have V-en will denote a closer situation. If the verb is atelic, have V-en may refer to an open situation. The English perfective viewpoint consistently interacts with situation-type. A sentence with the perfective viewpoint presents the sentence with the endpoint properties of its situation-type schema. The past participle morpheme –en is the marker of perfectivity. The auxiliary have is a mere carrier of Tense and Agreement.

Conclusions: The imperfective viewpoint is grammaticized in English; its formal marker is the morpheme –ing. English has morphological markers for the perfective viewpoint, that is the past participle morpheme –en.

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Situation-type aspect. Situation-types classify events and states in terms of clusters of semantic features: [+/- stative]/[+/- dynamism] Ex. John lives in London.[+stative][-dynamism] Everybody was running to the park.[-stative][+dynamism] , [+/- telic] They ran in the park. [-telic]They ran to the park. [+telic], [+/- duration] They spotted her in front of the shop. [-duration]They swam to the shore. [+duration], [+/- agency] John is tall./John is polite. The linguistic unit which realizes situation type is ‘the verb constellation’, that is the verb (which is central), its arguments and the complements (directional, temporal and other types). Verb constellations have a composite value. Sentences may refer to different types of situations if the complement is different: Mary ran in the park. Mary ran to the park. Sentences may refer to different types of situations if the subject is different:A famous movie star discovered that little spa. Famous movie stars have been discovering that little spa for years. Situation-type aspect holds of the verb constellation, not of the verb alone.

Classification. Smith (1991): verb constella-Tions, not only individual verbs. They have conceptual features relevant for the proposed classification: [+/- stative]. [+/- telic] and [+/- duration]. Each situation-type is taken to represent a cluster of these properties:

Situation-type +/-stative

+/-durative

+/-telic

STATES love, sit, be, polite

+ + -

ACTIVITIES run, walk, rain

- + -

ACCOMPLISHMENTS draw a circle, build a

house

- + +

ACHIEVEMENTS notice, find, win a race

- - +

SEMELFACTIVES hiccup, sneeze, jump

- - -

States/stative situations. John owns a farm. John is tall. John likes linguistics. Tigers are striped. John is angry. John is sick. Stative situations are static, have no dynamics, can hold for a moment or an interval, with an arbitrary final point, are homogeneous: when they hold for an interval they also hold for every sub-interval of that interval. Statives usually resist the progressive: *John is knowing English. BUT statives can apply to individuals, to kinds, or stages of individuals: when a stative predicates of a kind or an individual and it is incompatible with the

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progressive; when a stative predicates of a stage it can occur in the progressive:John is standing in the doorway. [+/- control] John is being polite today! Pseudo-clefts: know, belive, think, have, desire, love, hate, hear, see, smell, lie.

Activities are situations which are atelic (they consist entirely in the process), dynamic, durative, homogeneous and have no natural endpoint (their termination is not brought about by the structure of the event, it simply provides a final boundary to the process). Ex: walk in the park, dance, eat cherries, roll,, play the piano. Activities differ from change of state predicates: Does x was V-ing (pragmatically) entail x has V-ed? (John was making a chair); the entailment of stop + V-ing (John stopped running).

Achievements are instantaneous changes of state, with an outcome of a new state. The event consists of a single stage which is the very change of state they refer to. They are +dynamic, +telic, +instantaneous (reach the top, win a race, arrive, notice, break a glass). Achievements can be [+/- progressive] The plane was landing.

Accomplishments are complex events made up of a series of succesive stages and a natural endpoint. They are durative, telic, non-homogeneous and compatible with adverbials of completion: IN...(vs. activities). They build the bridge in two months. The adverb almost give different effects on activities and accomplishments: He almost painted a picture. Examples of accomplishments: walk to school, make a cake, build a house.

Semelfactives are instantaneous atelic events (knock, hiccup, flap a wing, sneeze, jump). Their initial and final points are simultaneous, they take place other the shortest possible interval and have dynamism. (He coughed.)

3. PRESENT TENSE SENTENCES. THE PRESENT SIMPLE. The relation between ST and RT encodes tense information. The 3 possible relations commonly assumed are: ST is prior to RT: future, RT is prior to ST: past, RT and ST are simultaneous: present. The relation between RT and ET encodes aspect information.The 3 possible relations commonly assumed are: ET is prior to RT: perfective, ET includes RT: progressive, ET=RT: neutral. Dogs bark. Tina is in Bucharest. Our dog is barking. She is making a cake. The same ‚reference’ property: RT and ST are simultaneous, they all contain a morphological marker with the value present: RT=ST. Present sentences are sentences which present situations from the perspective of a ‚present’ RT, identical with the time of the utterance (ST). Even if they are all present sentences, the way in which we interpret them is different. This is due to the fact that the temporal reading of a sentence must also take into account the ‚relation’ component which accounts for the relation between ET and RT, which accounts for the aspectual reading of the sentence.

1. Jane is dancing in the park. 2. Jane dances everyday. 3. Jane likes tennis.The relation between ET and RT in 1 and 3 is different: in 1 the events the sentences refer

to are on-going ones, they ‚hold’ at RT/ST, in 2 the events are perceived as iterative, they have a

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habitual interpretation and ET is specified bu the frequency adverbial and in 3 the iterative reading is exculded because of the lexical meaning of the stative verb.

Present tense sentences can refer to on-going events, to habitual situations, or to generic situations.

‚Simple present’ sentences. Habitual and generic sentences. Simple present tense sentences refer to general truths or general laws which are valid at RT/ST: ET includes RT. Men are mortal.Oil floats on water.Two and two are four. She never cooks on Mondays.

Generic sentences (GS) are descriptive (permanent property) and normative (showing what people should do). They express essential and not accidental properties (general truths). Predicates which denote permanent properties are the best candidates for GS: A potatoe contains (=permanent property and predicate) vitamin C, amino acids, proteine and thiamine. Predicate which basically denote temporary properties can occur in GSs but in this case they are re-interpreted as denoting a general property of the subject [John smokes.(=not permanent) He is a smoker (permanent property).] or they may require a modifier [John runss fast.(He is a fast runner.)]. The so-called middles are also often interpreted as generics: sentences which have active form but passive meaning [Students bore (=not a permanent property) easily.]

Certain predicates are compatible only with a generic reading: rare (Elephants are rare in this area.), widespread (Foxes are widespread in such areas.), extinct (Dinosaurs are extinct), common (Such errors are common in e-mail messages.).Such sentences are always interpreted as permanent properties.

The temporal interpretation of GS: ST=now, RT+ST→present, ET (implicit ‚always’) includes/encompasses RT, ET includes/encompasses ST (the situation ‚holds’ at ST)→general imperfective; associated with specific contexts: in (dictionary) definitions (a supply teacher=a teacher who temporarily replaces another teacher who cannot work), in scientific language to express general laws (The area of a circle equals pi times the square of its radius.), in proverbs and sayings (Necessity is the mother of invention.), inprescriptive statements (rules of games), geographical statements (The Danube flows into the Black Sea.).

Habitual sentences (HS) are sentences which refer to multiple instantiations of the event which they denote. They have a temporary reading ans specific events which occur with a certain type of regularity. John plays tennis everyday. We hear the air traffic at night. These sentences contain a frequency adverbial and have habitual value. In most cases ET is signalled by the frequency adverbial. Predicates which denote permanent properties resist a habitual reading: She is clever everyday. They are handsome every now and then. ‚Clever’, ‚handsome’ are permanent properties and cannot be used in habitual sentences. Generic sentences denote permanent properties.

The temporal interpretation of HS: ST=now, RT=ST→present, ET – specified by the frequency adverbial→interativity, ET includes ST→Open situation, general imperfective.

Simple present sentences with WIDE SPAN reading are sentences in which the adverbials indicate the (relatively wide) interval of which ST is a part: ET includes ST = on-going situation. Jane works for IBM this year(=time adverbial). The simple present is allowed in

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this case only because it is associated with a relatively long period of time. English crucially differs from other Germanic or Romance languages in that the continuous reading of the present tense simple is impossible with all eventive predicates, it cannot be used for temporary events going on at ST: *I find a book. The on-going, imperfective reading can be obtained with stative predicates: Jane is tired. (it is a temporary situation).

Simple present sentences with a NARROW SPAN reading are sentences in which the ET is ‚shrunk’ to an instantaneous ST. The event is conceived of as beginning and ending at ST. It is seen as completed and as simultaneous with ST: ET=RT=ST. There are 3 types of instantaneous events: performatives, perception and mental achievements and reportives of the dramatic type.

Performatives represents the performance of a verbal act. Performative verbs are verbs that form part of the event which they denote. When uttered under the proper circumstances, they effect the speech act they name. The event cannot take place without our uttering the verb which describes it. The ‚instantaneous’ reading is the result of the lexical meaning of the verb. The situation is seen as complete and resultative. I name you Jack. I pronounce you man and wife. I beg your pardon. (these are all instantenous situations).

Perception and mental achievements are reports of the events seen as instantaneous, reflecting the immediacy of perception. I understand what you mean. I recognize her face.

Reportives. Simple present sentences are interpreted as instantaneous in special contexts: in sports commentaries, in stage directions in play scripts, in demonstrations, in exclamatory sentences. In all these situations, the present simple sentence could be described as having a certain dramatic flavour. By convention the speaker uses the simple present because the situations come one after another. Hagi passes the ball to Popescu, who heads it straight into the goal! Not all sports commentaries use the simple present. Boat races are usually ‚reported’ as progressive, as taking time and hence the tense which is mainly used is the present progressive: Oxford are drawing slightly ahead of Cambridge now; they’re rowing with a beautiful rhythm; Cambridge are looking a little disorganized.

The simple present for past situations. Time adverbials can change the temporal reading imposed by certain tense inflection. Their presence is absolutely necessary if we want to obtain a reading different from the one imposed by the tense inflection.

The ‚historical present’ is [+bookish]. William is crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066 (allows you to understand the situation as a past situation).

‚Unplanned discourse’ or oral narrative is [+colloquial] and has a dramatic flavour. The narrative is more vivid and more subjective. So I opened the door, and I look out into the garden and what do I see but a man wearing a policeman helmet. The story may begin in the past tense, with the beginning of the story being signalled by deictic time adverbials or by specific discourse markers such as so, when, and then it is switched off into the simple present. It is used as a stylistic device. The swich to the present tense can signal @ a narrative turn of events When I went to see the house, the guy says to me...(the swich into the present is often correlated with lexical markers such as all of a sudden, and then, so, or by adverb preposing:and out comes

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this little sneak.), @ the speaker’s subjective involvement in the story; the subjective and experiential quality of the narrative is heightened We’re talking to the woman and the dorr’s closed and locked now, and the guy in the next apartament bangs his door – bang! – and as he bangs his door, the vertical tumblers fall down. @ the beginning of a more complicated part of the action to which the narrative refers: We were in the front, we just didn’t feel like getting out. And all of a sudden all these sparks start to fly. So the girl says ‚Look, do you know what you’re doing? [...] And he says, ‚Yes, I have to do it from inside’. And all of a sudden, he gets in the car, sits down and starts to turn on the motor.

Special contexts. (with verbs like hear, learn, say, tell, gather, inform, understand + reporting verbs, and newspaper headlines). Your father tells me you’re off to Berlin next month.

The simple present for FUTURE situations (the tenseless future). Pragmatically, present time is conceived of as having no endpoints; present tense can be used to express past events as well as future events. The sentence needs a future time adverbial. Tomorrow is Monday. They make ‚a prediction about the future from the vantage point of the present’. Steve leaves tomorrow but I won’t be surprised if he changes his mind. *Steve will leave tomorrow but I won’t be surprised if he changes his mind. Requires planning, a schedule of the future events which have to be licensed at ST („the scheduled future”). *Sam is angry tomorrow. It involves objective planning and a greater degree of certainty of predetermination. The state of affairs that follows ST is conceived as an assured fact. The subject speaks of something not indeed as really taking place now but simply as certain. The simple present tense with future time reference is used in contexts about plans or arrangements which are regarded as unalterable. The sun sets at 7:48 today. The temporal schema: St=now, ST before RT, ET=RT, ET after ST→non-historical/future situation.

THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE. I raise my arm. (sudden movement) I am raising my arm. (a gradual change) My watch works perfectly. (permanent state/the ‚unrestrictive present’) My watch is working perfectly now. (temporary state). –ing signals limited duration/temporariness. The bus stops! (the instantaneous present) The bus is stopping. (The bus is slowing down towards a stop) The plane is landing. –ing indicates that the event need not be complete → incompleteness. The present progressive represents an interval without end points, focuses on an internal stage of an event, on an ‚in-progress state’, happenings (dynamism, change of state), an open reading (ET encompasses RT), applies to non-stative situations, the predicates are interpreted as processes.

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The general imperfective vs. The progressive1 2

The Earth is round.

Your dog is barking in our garden.

Jack is my brother.Dogs bark. They are dancing in the

rain.In 1 and 2 the ET encompasses RT. 1. the general imperfective: applies to situations of all types and have no aspectual marker. ET has non-limited duration. 2. The progressive: applies only to non-statives, have the specific aspect morpheme –ing and ET has limited duration. The core value of the progressive: temporary incomplete happening that holds at/around RT.

The progressive aspect and situation-type aspect. 1. They are dancing in the garden. →activity+ing (+in-progress, temporary, dynamic, atelic, the entailment=they have already danced) 2. They are making a pizza. → accomplishment+ing (+in-progress, temporary, dynamic, atelic, the entailment=they haven’t makde pizza yet) 3. They are winning the game. (+in-progress, temporary, dynamic, atelic, the entailment=they haven’t won the game yet, focus on the preliminary stages of the event) 4. She is knocking at the door. →semelfactive+ing (in-progress, temporary, dynamic, iterative) 5. Your glass is sitting on the table. →stative+ing (+in-progress, temporary, atelic, non-dynamic) There are features which differ from sentence to another because the choices in the aspectual domain may have consequences for the meaning of the whole sentence.

The core meaning of the progressive. The time-frame theory. Jespersen (1931) „In my view we shall obtain a definition which holds good in the majority of cases if we start from the on –ing construction: he is (was) on hunting means ‚he is (was) in the course of hunting, busy (with) hunting’. The hunting is felt to be a kind of frame round something else: it is represented as lasting some time before and possibly (or probably) also some time after something else which may or may not be expressly indicated, but which is always in the mind of the speaker.” He was speaking when I entered the room. The activity of his sleeping is said to form the temporal frame within which the shorter event of my entering the room is placed. The action denoted by the ‚expanded tense’ (the progressive tense) is a ‚temporal frame encompassing something else which as often as not is to be understood from the whole situation’

The progressive and possible outcomes. Dowty (1979) John is draqing a circle. Does not entail ‚John has drawn a circle’ – the imperfective paradox. The existence of a circle is a possible outcome of John’s activity. The progressive implies not only incompleteness but also indeterminacy. It relates an incomplete event in the actual world to a complete event in some possible world. The progressive is not simply a temporal-aspectual operator but a kind of temporal-aspectual-modal operator.

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A temporal-aspectual interpretation of the progressive. Kearns (1991) The most important contribution of the progressive to the temporal meaning of a sentence is that it locates the reported event at or around RT → the current event reading of present progressive sentences.

Our choice is Kearns’ analysis and to start from the assumption that its main aspectual value is that of presenting temporary situations in progress at RT.

From the core value of the progressive to the temporal interpretation of a present progressive. So far: RT=ST=present, the progressive choice = incompleteness, indeterminacy, inprogress, limited duration, focus on the internal stages of durative situations. Progressive sentences refer to ‚observable phenomena – individual events or activities which are not held to have any characterizing quality with respect to the arguments involved’.ST =now, RT=ST (Present Tense), ET at/around RT (progressive aspect), ET at/around ST (a situation in progress at ST).

The present progressive and situation-type aspect. Activities. (+atelic, durative, dynamic-compatible with the core value of the progressive). Activity+ing = no reinterpretation/recategorization of the predicate. It is raining. Focus on an internal stage, duration, incompleteness but: incompleteness is not a feature imposed by the progressive alone (activities=atelic). ‚X already Vb.-ed’ but this derives from the meaning of the predicate; the internal interval which the sentence focuses on is identical to any other sub-interval because activities are homogeneous situations. Accomplishments. The girl is making a daisy-chain. The entailment ‚X has Vb.-ed’ fails. The progressive triggers different semantic effects on different predicates (= the imperfective paradox). Activities = atelic → activity +ing → activity. Accomplishment = telic → accomplishment + ing → activity. Achievements. (instantaneous changes of state, telic, dynamic, usually resist the progressive) Smith is winning the race. Semelfactives. (- telic, -durative, - static) hiccup, jump, wink. States usually resist the progressive (+atelic, non-dynamic, durative). States that refer to mental or physical cognition situations and ’emotive’ predicates (are basically incompatible with the progressive because they are individual-level predicates. The idea of ‚progress’ is reinforced in contexts which make it explicit by means of adverbials: more and more, even more. States can be used in the progressive when we refer to temporary situations. Only those states whose meaning is compatible with an ‚episodic’ reading can co-occur with the progressive. The progressive triggers a shift in terms of the semantic features of the predicate.

The BE class. The kit consists of the following tools. *The kit is consisting of the following tools. Verbs like cost, weight, consist of, depend onm resemble can be paraphrased by BE + Prepositional Phrase (the BE class); they usually denote permanent properties = prototypical statives (usually incompatible with the progressive).

The HAVE class. The book contains books and pens. The carpet belongs to me. Verbs like contain, hold, own, belong to he HAVE class; they usually denote permanent properties = prototypical statives and they are usually incompatible with the progressive.

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Psychological statives. Emotive predicates [Ex. Love, hate, adore, desire. (They all enjoy reading.)] refer to ‚emotions’; they refer to permanent properties/general dispositions and they are usually incompatible with the progressive. Mental cognition statives. Predicates such as agree, know, guess, belive, think, see, feel, forget, imagine, suppose, hope, understand refer to mental cognition situations [verbs of inert cognition (Leech 1971)/verbs of cognition and attitude (Huddleston 2002)]; they denote permanent properties/general dispositions and they are usually incompatible with the progressive. They all enjoy reading. Physical cognition statives. Predicates such as see, feel, smell, hear refer to physical cognition situations (verbs of inert perception – Leech 1971); they denote permanent properties/general dispositions and they are usually incompatible with the progressive. Verbs of inert perception have a [+active/+control] transitive counterpart: I am smelling some parfumes. Verbs of bodily perception. Ache, hurt, itch, tingle are at the boundary between stative and activity. They can be used in the progressive; no change of meaning (Leech 1971) / with a change of meaning (Huddleston 2002): the progressive = activity. Perception verbs used as ‚link’ verbs. Feel, sound, look, smell, taste + adjective phrase = copulative predicates; they denote permanent properties, [-control] and the progressive is generally excluded. Exception: She looks as fresh as a daisy. She is looking as fresh as a daisy.Verbs of perception and sensation: @Intransitive (link verb): The orange feels soft. @Transitive: I smell gass int he air. @ Thansitive: +active, + control, deliberate in action: I tasted the soup to see if it needed more salt.Verbs of position. Stand, sit, lie are at the boundary between states and activities. When denoting states, they resist the progressive; when applying to temporary situations, they allow the progressive. The church stands at the top of the hill. In narratives the progressive can also be used for permanent situations. When we got there, a wonderful castle was standing in the middle of the forest! ‚The limited duration feature reflects the narrator’s experience of the situation, rather thanthe objective state itself’ (Huddleston 2002).

The present progressive and habitual situations: habitual and ‚emotional overtone’. ‚Always’ is used on all occasions (in non-progressive sentences), constantly (in progressive sentences) and in statements of a habbit (She is always asking silly questions!).

How can we account for the compatibility between the progressive and the concept of habit? Traditional studies condition the use of the progressive in such contexts on the use of an adverbial of the type always, forever, continually, constantly, perpetually. The connotation is that of the speaker’s disapproval of the habit. There is an emotional involvement on the part of the speaker. Palmer: this use of the progressive is ‚emotional’/ ‚disapproving’.

Habit in existence over a limited period of time. The ‚limited period’ is generally specified by a time adverbial. The progressive represents a series of events and ET is limited to the temporal value of the time adverbial. ST=now, RT=ST, ET encompasses RT (the situation is seen as atelic), ET encompasses ET (the existential status of the sentence is open, non-historical, going on at ST).

Repetition of events of limited duration. ‚the notion of limited duration is applied not to the habit as a whole, but to the individual events of which the habit is composed. The result of

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substituting the progressive for the Simple Present is thus to stretch the time-span of the event’ (Leech 1971).

The present progressive for future events. The temporal value of the adverbial established a future RT: ST prior to RT (They are leaving for Oslo tomorrow.); but not always an explicit time adverbial. iJohn is leaving town. Something planned by a human agent is more subjective and less certain. The ‚uncertainty’ is the reflex of the modal value of the progressive. The indeterminacy and the incompleteness which we associate with the progressive could be one of the causes of the [-certainty] reading in this case. The progressive tends to be used for the relatively near future (Huddleston 2002).

THE PRESENT PERFECT. Meaning of the present perfect. In the linguistic literature several ‘meanings’ have been attributed to the present perfect: continuative perfect John has been my friend for 10 years., experential perfect Have you even been to London?, resultative perfect I have washed the dishes. They are clean., the ‘hot news’ present perfect John has just arrived.

The indefinite past theory. Present perfect represents indefinite past (John has killed the cat.) and past tense definite past (John killed the cat.). Cornerstone: the relationship between these 2 temporal forms and variations type adverbials, divided according to [+/-definite]: Definite adverbials: yesterday, two days ago (compatible with the past tense) They met in 1999. Indefinite adverbials: since, lately They haven’t met since our wedding.

Another theory: marker of prior events which are included within the present. The past tense refers to events which are included into a past separate from the present.John has just entered the house.

The current relevance theory. The present perfect refers to an event which is relevant at speech time. He has left.It locates an event (open John has been a student for 2 years now.or closed John has bought a new car.) before ST. The difference between open and closed derivates from the meaning of the predicates which can be: [+definite]→past, [-definite]→present perfect. There are time adverbials that can be used with both past or present perfect. They are named [+/-definite]. Recently (can work with both),long since, in the past. Frequency adverbials: never, always. Present perfect+definite time adverbial. The present perfect sentence asserts the past existence of a situation. The relationship between the present perfect and the past tense is similar to the one between the indefinite and definite articles.This wine is excellent. Thank you! For advance narration past tense must be used (we focus on one participant). Don’t thank me. It was Paul who has selected the wine. For where, how, who only past tense must be used.

Continuative perfect and the situation-type aspect. State predicates + present perfect will usually refer to an open situation (still ‘holds’ at ST). She has loved him ever since their first date.

Continuative value. States can be open or closed. Activities. When used in the present perfect, will not allow the continuative value of the present perfect (to think). He has been running for 2h. (open). Atelic predicates used with the present perfect can refer to a situation which began in the past and which continues at ST. This means they allow the continuative

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value. I have been thinking for several minutes now. There is a tendency to use the present perfect when the time speech is relatively long, but the present perfect progressive. Her parents have lived in Craiova since 1921. When achievement of the type find, loose, discover are used in the present perfect continuous, the sentence will refer to multiple situations of the same type ( I have made a cake).With accomplishments the continuative value is excluded. With accomplishments the continuative value is possible only if we use the present perfect progressive.

The meaning can have resultative value, continuative value when atelic predicates are used or telic predicates (+progressive); experential value can be used with all tipes of predicates. The experiential present perfect refers to something that happened on one or several occasions within the subject’s experience up to the present. The experiential value is available with all the classes of predicates. Have you ever been in love? Have you ever danced with a beautiful lady? Have you ever noticed this girl before? Have you ever made a cake?

4. PAST TENSE SENTENCES I first met Jane in 1999. (Past tense simple) At 11 o’clock last night I was watching a movie. (past continuous) I met John after he had been employed by IBM. (past perfect) They had been dancing for10h when the police arrived.(past perfect progressive) He promised they would write soon . (future in the past) He told me he could have been dancing for 2h by the time you got there. (future perfect in the past continuous). They all locate events in the past. Past RT can be explicit (time adverbial+definite) or implicit. Past time can be imperred from the larger context. The simple past tense counterpart of the simple present we can use it for: general situations in the past, if you have a frequency adverb (habitual situations in the past), wide-span, narrow-span (with certain predicates) and for future situations in the past.5. THE ENGLISH MODALS : a special class. The most stiking characteristics of the English modals are the so-called NICE properties (Huddleston 1976). Negation can attach to the modal, without DO-support: I cannot come.*I do not can come. Subject-Modal inversion is possible in interrogative sentences and tags; ‘do’ cannot be inserted: Must they leave?*Do they must leave?. Modals can appear in ‘codas’: I can come and so can Bill.* I can come and so does Bill. Emphatic affirmation is possible, again without DO-support: You shall have the money by tomorrow. *You do shall have the money by tomorrow. Such properties clearly distinguish the English modals from lexical verbs and show that they behave like the auxiliaries have, be and do. We could call this set the ‘No do-support’ set of properties because negation and emphatic affirmation can be reduced to one single fact: unlike lexical verbs, modals do not need ‘do-support’; they are all incompatible with the auxiliary do.

The English modals also evince other properties which quality them as a syntactically and morphologically definable class. These properties distinguish them both from lexical verbs, as well as from the auxiliaries have and be: they are incompatible with non-finite forms (*They are canning to do it now.), they are incompatible with agreement (*He mays do it.), they always select a short infinitive as their complement [They must (*to) leave immediately.], they have no passive form, they have no imperative, they cannot co-occur,

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with the exception of certain dialects (I don’t feel as if I should ought to leave. – Southern USA, from Denison 1993). Some modals have two tense forms (present and past) (They could play the piano when they were young.), some have a past tense form which can only be used in reported speech (The boss said she might leave immediately.), while others have only one form which can be used in past contexts as well but under certain conditions (The boss said they must leave immediately.). A modal is always the first verb in a finite verbal group because it cannot be selected by any other auxiliary.

The properties listed above provide evidence that the English modals have ‘non-lexical’ status, behaving in certain respects like functional categories.

The modals as a distinct class. Madals are analyzed either as occupying a position under the AUX(iliary) constituent, togeder with perfective have and progressive be (Chomsky 1957, Jackendoff 1977) or as distinct from these two auxiliaries. Emonds (1976) and Akmajian argue in favour of a distinct category AUX, but only the English modals are assigned to this distinct category, while have and be are identified as members of a subclass of verbs. AUX labels ‘a constituent that includes elements expressing the notional categories of Tense and/or Modality’ (Akmajian 1979). It is important to understand that placing the modals under the category AUX is different from the discussion whether there is a category of auxiliaries distinct from the category of verbs.

Auxiliaries in English are a distinct subclass of verbs which are sentence constituence and have phrasal status. The members of this class share a set of semantic and morpho-syntactic properties which distinguishes them from lexical verbs: they do not have an event structure, they do not assign theta-roles, they always select a VP complement, only auxiliaries can be negated by not/n’t, can invert with the subject in questions, can occur in tags and codas, can precede sentence-medial adverbs; emphatic affirmation is possible without do support only in structures which contain auxiliaries, only auxiliaries can occur under Inflection [the modals (some modals) are inserted under Inflection; have and be raise to Inflection from the VP where they are inserted.

Have and be were shown to differ from the English modals with respect to: morphological properties, base-position (modals are generated under Inflection via movement), morphological form of VP complement, VP deletion and descriptive content.

Do was defined as a ‘default’ auxiliary.6. MODALITY & THE SUBJUNCTIVE.

MODALITY is an area of language where speakers can choose between simply describing or actually evaluating or imposing a situation. John is crazy. John must be crazy to accept this offer. John must leave immediately!

Deontic modality. Deontic interpretations of modals express notions like duty, obligation (You must study for the exam. ), permission, forbidding, ability, willingness (I will marry her no matter what.).They evaluate a proposition according to some moral code or someone’s opinion about whether the situation is desirable or not.

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Epistemic modality. Epistemic interpretations of modals comment on the degree to which the speaker is willing to vouch for the truth of the proposition. Epistemic modals invoke the speaker’s knowledge of the facts in forming a judgement of the probability of a situation occurring.

John should be here by dinner time.(a) John is obliged/required to be here by dinner time. - deontic(b) It is likely that John will be here by dinner time. - epistemic

She must be good, to get such a scholarship.(a) It is required that she be good (in order to get such a scholarship) - deontic(b) It is evident that she is good (since she got such a scholarship) – epistemic

When considering modality it is useful to distinguish between two parts: the dictum (what is said) and the modus (how it is said, i.e. the speaker's propositional attitude toward what is said, e.g. the speaker's cognitive, emotive, and/or volitive attitude). Consider the following English sentence:It is hot outside. This dictum could be paired with various types of modi, such as the following:I think that it is hot outside. I believe that it is hot outside. I know that it is hot outside. I hope that it is hot outside. I doubt that it is hot outside. It must be hot outside. It has to be hot outside. It might be hot outside. It could be hot outside. It needn't be hot outside. It shouldn't be hot outside. It is probably hot outside. Perhaps it is hot outside. It is possible that it is hot outside. It is certain that it is hot outside. It is probable that it is hot outside. It is likely that it is hot outside. THE SUBJUNCTIVE (sometimes called conjunctive mood), is the mood which presents situations as formed in the mind of the speaker/conceptions of the mind. It is the mood of non-assertion, concerned with human action, with prescriptive discourse and involved in the choice and evaluation of human action.

Curme (1935): The indicative is the mood of simple assertion or interrogation, presenting something as a fact or in close relation to reality.

Jespersen (1965): The indicative is a fact mood (I have a new book.) and the subjunctive a thought mood (I wish I had a new book.).

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The form of the subjunctive. The synthetic subjunctive. @The past subjunctive/ the were subjunctive is identical in

form with the past tense morpheme. I wish I were in Venice. I’d be happy if he were here. @The present/be subjunctive is identical in form with the infinitive. I doubt that he be very clever. It’s vital that he keep them informed. @The perfect subjunctive. I wish he had left earlier. They wish she had not told them about it.

The analytical subjunctive. He ordered that he should leave at once. The end of OE/ME [11th c-]: the subjunctive mood inflections begin to dissapear; the subjunctive begins to be indicated periphrastically by means of the modal auxiliaries. Should+V; may/might/would/could. He didn’t say anything for fear he might get angry.

When used in complement clauses, the subjunctive is selected by those verbs whose meaning is compatible with its interpretation.

Triggers of the subjunctive. The subjunctive is normative, prescriptive, essentially involved in the choice and evaluation of human agency. The subjunctive "tenses" are not deictic. They do not place an event in real time. The Past Subjunctive, merely expresses anteriority with respect to a reference expressed in the main clause.I regret that he should believe me capable of dishonesty. I regret that he should have believed me capable of dishonesty.

There are 2 types: Lexical (verbs/adjectives/nouns) and Functional (negation). The first verb class almost exclusively used with the subjunctive is that of exercitive

verbs. In Austin's definition exercitive verbs "give a decision in favour or against a course of action", crucially involving the "ought to do" component of the subjunctive. Exercitive verbs may be verbs of command (order, forbid, ask, insist, suggest, urge, advise, allow, authorize, permit, beg, interdict, rule, prohibit, require)or verbs of permission (advisable, obligatory, imperative, compulsory desirable). He demands [that he be told/should be told everything]. These are considered ‘imperative sentences’ and the time sphere of the complement is future. *He ordered that he sould have left.

Volitional verbs (wish, desire, want, prefer, willing, eager, reluctant, anxious), like exercitive verbs may be described as strong intensional verbs. They introduce a set of alternative worlds, ordered function of the ideal of what is wanted, intended,prepared, etc. The complement clause is evaluated with respect to these alternatives, not withrespect to the real world. The normative, ideal semantic component is again clear, which is whyvolitional verbs select the subjunctive cross-linguistically. (Giorgi & Pianesi 1997). I wish I had told you about it.

Emotive/Evaluative predicates [good, right, best, better, awful, annoying, crucial, important, essential, vital, advisable, amazing, odd, tragic, nice; amaze, alarm, bother, surprise, irritate, disturb, regret, deplore]. It is essential that the book was published. It is essential that the book be published. All evaluative predicates exhibit dual mood choice: --- because of their meaning (a descriptive component + a normative/evaluative component) --- because the choice of the subjunctive stresses the prescriptive component of the predicate ---because the

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choice of the indicative stresses the descriptive component of the predicate. It is odd that she left early. (descriptive) It is odd that she should have left early. (evaluative)

One class of verbs which allow both the indicative and the subjunctive with differentinterpretation is that of verbs of communication (agree. tel, say, confess, declare, explain, inform, state, point out, warn). I insist that the film finished at 10:00 (I say/claim that…) I insist that the film should finish at 10:00. (I demand…). Dual mood choice: When the complement clause is in the indicative, these verbs are used as (strong) assertive verbs, the complement clause makes an assertion, and there are no constraints on the propositional content of the complement clause. It is interpreted in a weakly realistic background, since the verb is extensionally anchored. When they are used with the subjunctive, they are interpreted as exercitive verbs. The secretary informed the students that they should take the exam on the 6th of February. The secretary informed the Dean that the students will take the exam on the 6th of February.

Negation and the subjunctive. Negation in the matrix may require the use of the subjunctive in the embedded clause. I belive that he is here. *I belive [that he should be here]. I don’t belive that he is here. I don’t belive that he should be here. The contrary to expectations subjunctive is found not only with negation, but also with lexical predicates that include an element of doubt, uncertainty, implicit negation, such as: doubt, think, believe, matter, fancy, imagine, complain, reproach, etc. But this subjunctive also may appear with verbs that fail to express uncertainty, to suggest that the complement clause is contrary to the presuppositions in the common ground. Example: I doubt that he should succeed. The subjunctive is most distinctive in the verb to be. Here, there is not only a present subjunctive — be — but also a past subjunctive, were. Since other English verbs have a single universal past form (I sat, you sat, s/he, sat, we sat, they sat), they do not need to single one form out as a separate past subjunctive (the way 'to be' singles out 'were' among all its forms). The form of the subjunctive is distinguishable from the indicative in only three circumstances: in the third person singular of the present tense, with the verb to be in the present tense, and in the first person singular and third person singular of verb to be in the past tense.7. THE SEQUENCE OF TENSES (S.O.T). The interpretation of tenses in complement clauses. Tense is a deictic category, in that the truth of a tensed sentence isrelative to speech time (that is, to the context of utterance). This is clearly the case in independentsentences. Complement clause tenses are not directly linked to Speech Time or Utterance Time Instead, they are linked to higher tenses that are linked to ST or to even higher tenses, etc.Therefore, complement tenses are linked to Utterance Time only indirectly. Semantic interpretation of tenses in the complement clause depends on the main clause. This semantic dependence of complement tense on matrix tense also has a syntactic aspect, traditionally discussed under the rubric of the Sequence Of Tenses (= SOT) of the Indicative

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Mood. The simplest formulation of the sequence of the tenses rule says that a past tense in a main clause requires only past tenses in the subordinate clauses. There are two main ways of approaching the SOT:@ The SOT may be viewed as an effect of indirect discourse. When reporting a person'sstatement under a past verb of saying, the reporter must back-shift all the present tenses in thereported statement to the corresponding past tenses. A recent statement of this position is theLongman Grammar (1999):Direct Discourse Indirect discoursePresent → PastPresent Perfect → Past PerfectFuture → Future in the Past

These changes are apparent in example of the following type:Mary said: "I have a headache." - Mary said that she had a headache.@ The second approach acknowledges the empirical fact that the scope of the SOT far exceeds indirect discourse. There are thousands of cases where the effect of the SOT is clear, even though there is no indirect discourse. Ross (1967) and Costa (1972) discuss a rule that can deal with SOT phenomena observed in sentential subjects like *That the sun is out was obvious.That the sun was out was obvious., which do not have a direct discourse source. According to them, the SOT is an effect of a particular structural configuration an effect of subordination. Tenses in subordinate clauses may exhibit a different range of interpretations, derivingfrom: @ the position of the SC, that is, the syntactic configuration where the clause is projected (complement clause vs. relative clause); @ the nature of the predication in the SC (the feature [+-stative]). Roughly, tenses in subordinate clauses are oriented to the main clause tense, instead of being oriented to utterance time. In some relative clauses, the present tense can be used when the verb in the matrix is in the past tense. When SOT is optional all the values of the present tenses remain the same in backshiftting. If you rang me up tomorrow I could give you his phone number, she said. She said that if he rand her up the following day she could give him his phone number. (it didn’t happen, it is a hypothetical situation). If I had the book with me, I would give it to you, he said. He said that if he had had the book with him, he would have given it to her.(the situation is counterfactual, it can’t happen). If the conditional clause has a hypothetical value, we don’t have to backshift anything. If the conditional is interpreted as counterfactual, then we must backshift everything. If I had enough money, I would buy this car, he said. He said that if he had had enough money, he would have bought that car. The Earth is round, the teacher said. (SOT is optional because it is a general remark. John remembered that they have classes every week. SOT rule is optional when the situation is relevant at speech time. Double access reading (DAR).Curme (1931): Past controlling present sentences (present tense sentences under past tense) are used to represent something as customary, habitual

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characteristic, or as universally true.". His father told him that the Earth is round (universally true) Smith (1978):When a present tense is used instead of a past tense in reported speech "the speaker is responsible as it were, for the complement's being true or relevant at speech time. Moreover, such sentences indicate that the same event or event/state referred to[in the complement clause] holds both at the time referred to in the matrix and at speech time."(DAR) John heard that Mary is pregnant. (the situation is true at ST and it holds both at ET of the matrix and at ST).Smith thus identifies the main property of these constructions. The situation described by theembedded clause seems to hold with respect to both the past time evoked in the main clause andthe utterance time of the report. SOT can be disregarded if the complement can be interpreted as speaker oriented (the original utterance is still applicable and relevant at ST). Jill said she has a headache. (DAR) The complement is true at ST and it was true at the time of Jill saying that. Present vs. Past. The SOT is optional in generic and habitual sentences. The SOT is optional when in the main clause the predicate is factive. Epistemic factives (the speaker’s evaluation of the situation): find out, discover, know, learn, realize, see, perceive, notice. Such verbs express the subject’s state of knowledge or the manner in which the subject came to know the truth. Affective factives: regret, be sorry/ surprised/ amazed/ happy/ upset. Their complement is always a fact and it is presupposed to be true. You didn’t mention that you know them. You didn’t mention that you knew them. If the matrix contains verbs of communication (say, tell, indicate), such verbs will also allow optional SOT. She said that most students often have problems with this professor. (DAR - the complement is interpreted as speaker-oriented). Verbs that do not allow optional SOT. Verbs that do not allow DARs include non-factive verbs of propositional attitude (think, believe) and of linguistic communication (allege, insist), as well as manner of speech verbs (grunt, mumble, grumble) ,"which are always associated with a point of time in a narrative nonconversational discourse, thereby establishing a distance between speaker and sentence, so that the speaker cannot identify with the complement."(Costa (1972)). There is no optionality with non-factive verbs of linguistic communication (declare, insist, suggest). The fact that some classes of verbs allow/disallow optional SOT provides evidence in favour of the view that the SOT rule exceeds indirect discourse. King Richard said that he would let his daughter marry any knight [who comes back from the crusade]. (relative clause – SOT is allowed). Such secondary sentences are licensed under very specific conditions: the present tense must be in a non-specific Relative Clause and the present tense must be embedded under a future oriented modal. Tenses in embedded claues may have reading which they do not have in independent sentences. John said that Mary was pregnant. Mary was pregnant at the time when John said that. (simultaneous reading of the past tense). Mary was pregnant before John said that. (the shifted reading of the past tense). Mary said that John left. Mary announced that she received a letter. Only the shifted reading is available (statives and eventives). Two readings are available only when the predicate is a state; when there are event predicates, one single reading is available.

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SINTAXA PROPOZITIEI SIMPLE.8. INTRANZITIVE PREDICATES.

ONE ARGUMENT VERBS. Intranzitive verbs are one argument verbs (that do not represent a homogeneous class), which cannot assign Accusative case. They assign different theta-roles to their argument: Some intransitive verbs assign the role of Agent to their argument [The boys (Agent – controls the action) cried with laughter], others assign the role of Patient [A lot of snow (Patient – cannot control the action) melted on the streets of Chicago.]. Intranzitive verbs differ with respect to there sentences, (There developed a problem. *There melted a piece of ice.) resultative phrases [The river froze solid. (resultative phrase) *The river froze itself solid.], the ability of their past participle of occurring inside the NP as a pre-noun modifier (rusted pipes, decayed vegetation, corroded metal) and locative inversion [In the distance appeared a beautiful ship. (the subject in post verbal position) A beautiful ship appeared in the distance. (locative inversion) BUT *On the streets melted a lot of snow. *In the attic broke many windows.] Different semantic properties. Perlmutter (1978) was the first to distinguish between two types of one-argument verbs, unergatives and unaccusatives, which evince different semantic properties. Unergatives: denote volitional acts [predicates describing willed or volitional acts (work talk, daydream, disagree, knock, weep, bow, laugh, crawl), manner-of-speaking verbs (whisper, shout, mumble, grumble), verbs describing sounds made by animals (bark, neight, quack, roar, oink)], their argument is the Agent of the event and has control over it and they denote mainly atelic events. Unaccusatives: denote mainly non-volitional acts, their argument is never the Agent and does not have control over the event and they denote mainly telic events. Different syntactic properties. Only unaccusatives can be followed by a resultative phrase. Unergatives can be followed by a resultative phrase if they take a fake reflexive object [*They drank under the table.(we need a fake reflexive) They drank themselves under the table.]. Passive predicates are compatible with there-sentences (There was found an ancient treasure.). Unaccusatives and unergatives behave differently with respect to their compatibility with there-sentences: unaccusatives can occur in there-sentences whereas unergatives cannot. But unergative can occur in there-sentences but, the conclusion that all unaccusatives can occur in there-sentences is too strong: A lot of snow melted on the streets. *There melted a lot of snow on the streets of Chicago. Unaccusatives denoting a definite change of state cannot appear in there-constructions. Some verbs which basically denote a change of state, such as grow, open may occur in there-sentences: There grew a lot of roses in that garden. But when they do, they are understood as verbs of appearance or existence. (Milsark 1979). The unaccusatives which are most likely to occur in there-constructions are those denoting ‘existence’ [verbs of existence (be, blaze, correspond, depend, exist, live, grow, rise, survive), verbs of sound existence (echo,

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resonate, reverberate, sound), verbs of group existence (abound, crawl, creep)] and ‘appearance’ (appear, arise, awake, begin, burst, happen, occur, show up) - (Levin 1993). The behavior of various intransitive verbs with respect to there-sentences. (Almost) Any intransitive can occur in outside verbals, that means that-sentences whose argument NP is separated from the verb by a PP: [There verb PP NP]). Inside verbals, that means there-sentences whose NP argument is adjacent to the verb [There verb NP (PP)] are more restrictive with respect to the type of verb they allow: only unaccusatives denoting existence and appearance are allowed in this type of sentence. Unaccusatives fall into two classes: prototypical unaccusatives (which have no transitive/causative counterpart) and derived unaccusatives (derived from basically two-argument causative predicates which detransitivize). Verbs of existence and appearance belong to prototypical unaccusatives. The two sub-classes behave differently with respect to there-sentences: the unaccusatives belonging to prototypical unaccusatives are allowed in there-sentences (inside verbals), whereas the derived ones cannot occur in there-sentences (inside verbals). Only prototypical unaccusatives imply the idea of existence and have a locational argument. This can explain why they can occur in there-sentences. Locative Inversion is a non-canonical construction in which the surface subject stays in post-verbal position and the verb is preceded by a locative PP. (Locative) PP-V-NP (subject) The following sentences (taken from Birner & Ward 1998) illustrate this type of structure: On the table sat a nervous cat. Out of nowhere appeared a mysterious figure. To their left, beyond a strip of grass, was the front of a large high building in a grey stone. In a little white house lived two rabbits. Once upon a time there was a lake in the mountains and in that lake lived a huge crab. (the verbs are unaccusatives) All the predicates are intransitives. Transitive verbs cannot occur in this construction: *In the kitchen ate Mary an apple.Unergatives cannot occur in locative constructions. Not only transitives are disallowed from occurring in locative inversion [*In the hall talked many people.*In the offices complain many people.(the verbs are intransitives but of the unergative type)]. Derived unaccusatives which denote a definite change of state are banned from this construction: *On the streets melted a lot of snow.Those unergatives which can be cross-listed as unaccusatives, that is which can also be interpreted as having an unaccusative meaning, will occasionally occur in locative inversion.

The Resultative Construction. The Direct Object Restriction: Resultative phrases can only be predicated of direct objects. Unergatives can co-occur with a resultative only if the NP adjacent to the unergative is not its argument. Unaccusatives and unergatives behave differently with respect to resultative phrases: (Telic) unaccusatives can occur with resultative phrases provided they do not denote an event with an inherently specified achieved location or a specified delimited path, that means with an

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inherently specified delimiter and unergatives can occur with resultative phrases only if a fake reflexive object or a non-subcategorized NP are added in post-verbal position. The past participle of unergatives cannot be used as a modifier inside NPs. The past participle of unaccusatives which depict a change of state can be freely used as a modifier inside NPs. The use of the past participle of unaccusatives which depict a change of location as an NP-internal modifier is less felicitous. The past participle of telic unaccusatives cannot occur in an NP-internal position. COPULAR PREDICATES. The copulative predicate is he result of the joint contribution of two constituents: a copula and a predicative.

(a) John is a hunk.(b) She remained a widow.(c) They ran mad.(d) He will make a good engineer.

A brief look at these sentences reveals that they all contain a copular [(a)] or a copula-like verb [(b), (c), (d)], which provides a link between the subject of a sentence and the element which predicates about this subject. For example in (a) John is the subject and the element which is predicated of John, that is which assigns a property to John, is the NP a hunk. Be is said to be a copular verb or a copula in such sentences. And the element which actually assigns a property to the subject is said to function as a predicative. In (d), the predicative a good engineer denotes the property which is assigned o the subject of the sentence, he. A predicative can be an NP [(e) John is a good teacher.], an AdjP [(f) John is clever.], a Prepositional Phrase [(g) John is of good stock.], an IP [(h) His dream is to study syntax.] or a whole clause [(i) The truth is that he has always wanted to teach grammar.]. The syntactic value of copula BE. Copular verbs and argument structure. If we examine the (e) ,(f), (g), (h), (i) sentences we will notice that it is the predicative and not the copula which assigns a property to the subject. In (e) John is assigned the property clever, and so on. This clearly points to the fact that the predication relation is established between the subject and the predicative, and not between the subject and the copula. The NP which is the subject of the sentence is assigned a theta-role and is the argument of the predicative, not the argument of be. That this is the case can be seen in certain semantic restrictions which the predicative imposes on the subject. Consider the following sentences: (j)*Mary is a hunk. (k)*Your husband is plumpy. (l)*John is pretty. (m)*John is my sister. Such sentences are ungrammatical because the property denoted by the predicative cannot be assigned to the entity denoted by the subject. A hunk is aproperty of a [+male] entity, whereas pretty, plumpy, and my sister cannot be predicated of a [+male]subject. This explains the unacceptability of the sentences in these examples. The selectional restrictions cannot be associated with the copula, since sentences with a copulative predicate are acceptable with such predicatives when the subject has different semantic properties: John is a hunk. His wife is plumpy. His wife is pretty.) Mary is a widow. The properties of what has been known in the literature as a areciprocal copulative predicates: be

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alike, be equal, be married, be joint, be attached, be equivalent, be identical, be correlated etc. also derive from the semantics of the predicative. Verb are not the only lexical category which can assign theta-roles and not all the verbs are theta-role assigners. The copula BE has no external argument. It selects a clausal constituent as its internal argument. Given the fact that copulas cannot assign the external theta-role or case, they can be included in the class of unaccusatives. The role of the copula. The copula carries Tense, Aspect, Agreement and Mood information. The fact that the copular verb carries Agreement information makes it more obvious that it provides a link between the subject and the predicative , anchoring the state of affairs denoted by the small clause to the time of realis (John is polite. John is being rude today! John has always been polite.) or to irrealis (I wish he were polite.). Copula BE vs. copula-like verbs. Copula BE and copula-like verbs are unaccusatives which select a small clause as an internal argument. The fact that copula BE behaves like auxiliaries with respect to do-support, whereas copula-like verbs pattern with lexical verbs in this respect has been assumed to derive from the semantic lightness of be as opposed to the residual substantive content of copula-like verbs. In spite of the fact that copula BE shares an important set of syntactic properties with auxiliaries, the conclusion was reached that copula be cannot be treated on a par with auxiliaries. It is a distinct type of unaccusatives. INTRANSITIVES WITH PREPOSITIONAL OBJECTS (intransitive verbs which have an indirect argument). (a) John relies on you. (b) *John relies. (c) He looked at her. (d) *He looked. As (b) and (d) show, the omission of the Prepositional Object results in ungrammaticality. This clearly points to the fact that the Prepositional Object is part of the subcategorization frame of the verb. Prepositional intransitives include only those verbs which have an external argument and an indirect internal argument.The internal argument is an indirect internal argument, which is assigned a theta-role and case via preposition. The subcategorization frame of the verb includes the preposition which head the constituent, but there is no way in which one can predict this preposition. This is an idiosyntactic property of the respective verb and is, accordingly, stated as such in lexicon.

9. TRANSITIVE PREDICATES. (a)John cut the bread. (b)*John cut. (c) John gave a book to his wife. (d)*John Gave a book. (e) John gave his wife a book. (f)*John gave his wife. (g) John gave up family life. (h) She put on her new hat. (i)* John cut yesterday the bread. A brief examination of the above sentences reveals that the verbs which they contain are followed by an NP: the bread in (a), a book in (c), family life in (g) or her new hat in (h). They are transitive verbs. They have an external argument (the subject) and an internal argument, whose syntactic function is that of direct object. Their ability of taking a direct object, which occurs in post-verbal position, provides evidence that transitive verbs can assign Accusative case. The NP which is the direct object in all the sentences above can surface as an overt NP precisely because it can receive case from the verb whose argument it is.

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In English the verb can assign Accusative case only if the adjacency condition is met: the NP which is assigned case must be adjacent to the verb. Nothing can intervene between the verb and its and its direct object, or else case assignment is blocked. The verb cut can assign case only to an NP which is adjacent to it. The presence of the adverbial yesterday [in (i)] blocks case assignment, leaving the NP unmarked for case, in violation of the Case Filter. Semantically, the direct object of a transitive verb very often ‘measures out’ the event (it provides information with respect to the boundaries of the event denoted by the verb). It can be an affected object (Tenny 1987). The NP the bread in (a) denotes an entity ‘affected’ by the action the predicate refers to. The same applies to the direct object in chop a tree, clip a ticket, eat an apple. Compare these examples to carve a statue, build a house, bake a cake. The direct object refers, in there predicates, to an entity that is the result of the event described by the verb. They are effected objects. DOUBLE OBJECT CONSTRUCTIONS. The predicate in (c) contains, besides the external argument John and the internal argument a book, an indirect argument, the PP to his wife. The absence of this PP makes the sentence ungrammatical in most contexts. Moreover, as (d) shows, the same verb can have two NP complements (his wife and a book). This proves that some transitive verbs can have more than one internal argument. Such constructions are called double object constructions (DOC). Distransitives are verbs which take an external argument and two internal arguments. In double object construction the Goal argument asymmetrically c-commands the Theme argument. Not every verb which can be used in the prepositional object constructions can be used in a DOC. A verb like give, as already seen in the sentences (c), (d), (e), (f), requires both internal arguments to be present in the syntax, except for habitual or generic sentences (Arad 1995) where the Goal can be omitted but has an arbitrary reading: They always give gifts at Christmas. The verbs which allow the DOC [give verbs (give, pass, sell, pay, loan, serve, feed, refund, rent, trade), verbs of future having (offer, promise, guarantee, assign, advice), verbs of throwing (bash, catapult, fling, kick, pitch, shoot, toss), verbs of sending and verbs of instrument of communication (cable, send , mail, ship, fax, radio, telecast), illocutionary verbs of communication (ask, tell, show, teach, write, read, quote), bring and take] are verbs which involve causation of a change of possession and they allow the Dative Alternation. 1.(a) John donated hiscollectionto his grandson. (b) *John donated his grandson his collection. 2.(a) They transferred the merchandise to their partners. (b)*They transferred their partners the merchandise.3.(a) They explained th problemto the boss. (b)*They explained the boss the problem.4. (a) He dictated the text to his secretary. (b)*He dictated his secretary the text.

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The sentences above all contain a verb that belongs to one of the lists of verbs denoting change of possession: donate belongs to the give class, transfer to the send class, explain and dictate to the tell class. But, as the ungrammaticality of the (b) sentences shows, they cannot occur in the DOC. The constraint which can explain the data in 1-4 is know as the Latine restriction, summarized in: Verbs of Latinate origin (or more recent borrowings) cannot occur in the DOC. There are two classes of verbs which are insensitive to the Latinate constraint: verbs of future having and verbs of communication. PHRASAL TRANSITIVES. A phrasal transitive is a verb phrase consisting of a transitive verb and a particle, inside which the direct object can intervene between the verb and the particle without any change in the grammaticality or the semantics of the phrase. Consider the paired sentences below:

1. (a) John put his hat on. (b) John put on his hat.2. (a) She filled the glass up. (b) She filled up th glass.3. (a) He took his shoes off. (b) He took off his shoes.

In all these sentences, the verb and the particle seem to form a constituent: put on, fill up, take off. Phrasal verbs have often been analyzed as a sort of compound/complex verbs. The arguments which support this analysis are both semantic (The verb and the particle form a semantic unit or a natural predicate. The whole complex [V+Prt] can sometimes be paraphrased by a single word: give up = renounce, put off = postpone, slap on = spread.) and syntactic [The verb and the particle togeder assigncase to the Np in DO position (the glass); there are no modifiers between the verb and the particle] in nature. No adverbial can normally intervene between the verb and the particle in the V PRT NP configuration. When gapping applies, the verb and the particle are gapped togeder. If the complement is a pronoun, it must always occur in between the verb and the particle: He took them off. He took off them. But, if the pronoun receives contrastive stress it canoccur after the particle: They call up him (not his sister) – Chen 1986.Unstressed pronominal direct objects must occur in between the verb and the particle. If the DO is a ‘heavy’ constituent, it must be placed after the particle: He gave away all the books which he bought when he was a student. Ideomatic phrasal transitives. In this case the DO is normally placed after the particle: *I turned down the invitation. I turned the invitation down. If the NP denotes an abstract entity it will normally be placed after the particle: We are trying to build up trust with our student.10. THE FLOATING NATURE OF (IN)TRANSITIVITY. MIDDLES have active form and passive meaning. Some basic transitive verbs can occur in intransitive frames in which the subject is the same as the direct object in the transitive consifuration. Consider the following sentences: (a) I melted the butter. (b) This butter melts easily. (c) John cut the meat. (d) This meat cuts with difficulty.

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(e) The man scared the children. (f) Children scare easily. (g) The man loaded the truck. (h) The truck loads with difficulty. (i) I read this book. (j) Such books read easily. The DO of the transitive configuration in the (a), (c), (e), (g), (i) is the structural subject of the intransitive construction in the (b), (d), (f), (h), (j) sentences. For example the DO the butter in (a) is the grammatical subject in (b). The theta-role of the DO remains unchanged. The butter is assigned the role of Patient/Theme in (a) and it preserves this role in the intransitive configuration in (b). The children in (e) is assigned the role of Experiencer and it preserves this role when it becomes the subject of the intransitive construction (f). In (g) the truck can be analyzed as a Locative, a role that it also has in the intransitive frame. This alternation can be summarized as: NP1 V NP2 / NP2 V. The argument structure of middles. The Agent of middles, thought not overt, is semantically and, according to some researchers, also syntactically active. It often has a generic reading: people in general/one. Because the only visible argument is the one assigned the role of non-Agent (Patient, Experiencer, Locative etc.) the whole structure is interpreted as having passive meaning. However, the subject of middles, unlike the grammatical subject in passive sentences, is required to refer to an entity ‘responsible’ for the situation denoted by the verb. Middles and genericity.Middles share more with individual-level statives than with genericity. They behave like individual-level statives in many respects: sequence of tenses, resistance to the progressive and imperative (*Bribe easily, bureaucrats!), recategorization when used in the progressive, co-occurrence with various tenses and with specific time adverbials. Because individual-level stative predicates denote general properties, predicating of individuals and not of stages of individuals, sentences containing statives are very often generic statements. The interpretation of middles as generic is not, then, a defining feature, but rather a possible effect licensed by their stativity. Middles and Adverbial modifiers. The main properties which an adverbial modifier is required to have in order to be allowed inside a middle are: @ it must be a VP-modifier and @ it must be an Agent-oriented adverb. These properties are closely related to the role of the modifier which must evince a set of properties compatible with the stative-like behavior of middles. In particular, it must be able to turn an eventive predicate into a stative one. The Affectedness Constraint.: only verbs with an affected argument can form middles. Affectedness can account for a range of classes of verbs witch are compatible [cut verbs (clip, cut, hack, saw, scrape, slash), carve verbs (bruise, chop, crush, mash, shred, slice), verb of ‘separating’ (disconnect, dissociate, divide, separate), mix verbs (blend, combine, join, add, connect, link), tape verbs (band, belt, chain, handcuff, seal, tape, tie zip)] as well as for a range of classes of verbs which are incompatible with middles [perception verbs (see, detect, feel, hear, notice, smell, taste), verba dicendi (say, tell, admit), ‘judgement’ verbs (acclaim, applaude,

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bless, celebrate, criticize), psych verbs with Experiencer subject (forget, notice, admire, enjoy, miss,hate, fear, envy, like)] – the lists are taken from Levin 1993. These are ungrammatical because they do not observe the Affectedness Constraint: *Such things do not admit easily. *Teachers criticize easily. *Paitings admire easily. There are pairs of verbs like sell and buy , whose arguments are equally unaffected and still, buy resists middle formation whereas sell can occur in a middle frame (Fagan 1992): *This book buys well. This book sells like hot cakes. All the verbs in the classes bellow would unambiguously qualify as verbs with an affected argument. But they cannot normally form acceptable middles (*Cities destroy easily.) - the lists are taken from Levin 1993): verbs of ‘throwing’ (bat, catapult, knock, pass, slam, toss), spank verbs (belt, cane, spank, whip), murder verbs (assassinate, execute, slaughter, demolish, destroy, ruin). According to Tenny (1987) the verbs which have a delimiting argument are allowed in middles. She proposes that they fall into the following classes: verbs of consumption and creation (read, perform, cross), verbs of change of physical state (open, burn, dry, ripen), verbs of abstract change of state (annoy, bribe, convince, surprise), achievement verbs (break, crack, explode), verbs of motion (float, rotate, spin). But not even redefining affectedness in term of delimitedness can provide a satisfactory account of the data. Take for example the case of sell and buy discussed before. An aspectual approach. In spite of the appeal of the Affectedness Constraint, the data showed that it cannot explain in a satisfactory way why some verbs can enter the middle alternation while others cannot. An aspectual approach to middle formation offers a more explanatory basis for the analysis of the domain of middles. The verbs which can occur in middles are subject to the following restrictions: @they must be transitive verbs with an internal argument @they must be activities or accomplishments @ their object must be perceived as responsible for the state of affairs the sentence refers to. PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS. 1. (a)John will invite Mary. [active] (b)Mary will be invited (by John). [passive] 2. (a)John wrote this book. [active] (b)This book was written by John. [passive] In 1(a) and 2(a), referred to as active sentences, the predicate has an active voice form. The internal argument, Mary, which bears the theta-role of Patient/Theme, is the direct object of the verb invite. In 1(b) and 2(b), referred to as passive sentences, the same argument occurs in subject position. The passive subject has the same theta-role as the direct object in the active sentence. The external argument, the Agent, John, is no longer realized as the subject but as an optional adjunct by-Phrase. The argument structure remains unchanged. What actually changes is the position of the internal argument, which no longer remains in its base-position, as in an active construction. The Agent is no longer realized as the subject, but either as a by-phrase or as an ‘implicit’ argument, phonetically null but available for interpretation. Besides the change in the distribution of arguments, there is one more salient difference between the active and the passive sentences in 1. and 2. : the morphological for of their verb. The passive constructions contain the auxiliary to be, which carries inflectional markers (Tense,

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Agreement etc), and the past participle of the lexical verb. Passivization, then, also means a change in the morphological properties of the verb. The literature on the passive often mentions a second passive construction, reffered to as the get-passive, because the verb be is replaced by get: He got killed trying to save some other man. Passive morphology.

(a) They are being watched.(b) They wish they were not told what to do.(c) The bridge had been built before war.(d) She likes being spoilt.(e) The problem will have been solved by the time the boss returns.

As can be seen in these examples, the form of the verb in a passive sentence has distinct morphological properties. The affix –en attaches to the stem of the lexical verb, forming the past participle. Besides, the auxiliary be appears in passives. It carries tense, aspect, and agreement information. The auxiliary and the past participle seem to contribute each to the way in which the predicate is interpreted. The past participle names the event and the auxiliary anchors this event to the grammatical subject (via agreement) and to the Tense-chain of the sentence (via tense). A passive structure then must contain a past participle and the auxiliary be. The same past participle occurs in combination with the auxiliary have:

(f) John has invited Mary.(g) John has written a book.

When the past participle co-occurs with the auxiliary have it will have an active interpretation. When it merges with be the active properties are replaced by passive ones (Roberts 1987). But both auxiliaries merge with an AspP headed by –en: be+past participle (V-en)→passive interpretation; have+ past participle (V+en)→active interpretation. The past participle in a be+past participle configuration is intransitive. The theta-role of the external argument of the verb is absorbed by en (passive morphology) and the verb remains with one single argument (the internal one). John was killed. (we understand that someone commited the crime→the sentence implies an Agent→the Agent is no longer an obligatory argument). *Mary will be invited John. *This book was written John. (you have to add ‘by’ otherwise John will not receive case). Passive morphology ditransitivizes the lexical verb: the passive verb looses its case assigning ability as well as that of taking an external argument. It behaves like one argument verb. Since the argument is the one that receives the role of Theme, passive verbs behave in this respect like unaccusatives. Conditions on passivization. The adjacency constraint. (a) John gave Mary the book. (b) Mary was given the book. (c)*The book was given mary. In (b), which is grammatical, the moved NP started from a Vp-internal position adjacent to the verb. The NP the book is not adjacent to the verb in (a). The ungrammaticality of (c), in

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which this non-adjacent NP moved to [Spec IP], points to the fact that only an NP immediately adjacent to the verb can move to the subject position. Pssivization can apply only if the active verb has an internal argument and if this argument is adjacent to it. In these sentences , the NP moves out of the PP, leaving the preposition in situ: (d) The boss asked for the information. (e) The informationi was asked for ti by the boss. (f) Someone must talk to John. (g) Johni must be talked to ti by someone. In these sentences , the verb selects a prepositional object. In each case, the verb does not have an internal argument, but an indirect argument. Moreover, the NP inside the PP receives case from the preposition. Firstly there is an important difference between the V+Prepositional Object sequence in active and passive sentences. In an active sentence, the verb can be separated by the preposition by intervening material. In these sentences,an adverb intervenes between the verb and its prepositional object: You can depend entirely on his integrity. (Radford 1992) They talked often about the boy. (Haegeman & Guéron 1999). But in a passive sentence, nothing can intervene between the verb and the preposition: (j)*His integrity can be depended entirely on. (k)*He was talked often about. These sentences become grammatical if the adverbial which occurs between the verb and the preposition is removed: His integrity can be depended on. He was talked about. In an active sentence, the preposition can be modified by right and straight: Many people turned right against her. Everybody stared straight at her. But no modifier can intervene between the verb and the preposition in passive sentences: (l)*She was turned right against by many people. (m)*She was stared straight at. The ungrammaticality of the sentences (j), (k), (l) and (m) suggests that in passive sentences the verb and the preposition must form a single cohesive unit, which cannot be broken up by any intervening material. The NP argument will be adjacent to this ‘complex’ verb. In an active sentence, the verb and the preposition can be separated. One possible explanation of this empirical fact is to assume that in a passive sentence the preposition incorporates into the verb. The adjacency constraint. The transitive verbs which enter the Dative alternation are no exception to the adjacency constraint. In the next set of sentences only (o) represents the passive counterpart of (n): (n) John gave Mary the book. (o) Mary was given the book. (p)*The book was given Mary. In accordance with the adjacency constraint, only the adjacency NP is allowed to move to [Spec IP] in passive senteneces. (o) is a licit passive because it involves the movement of the NP Mary, adjacent to the verb. In (p), the NP the book moved to subject position. But,since it was not adjacent to the verb,the adjacency constraint is violated and the sentence is ungrammatical. The book can move to [Spec IP] only if it is adjacent to the verb, as in: John gave the book to Mary. The book was given to Mary. *Mary was given the book to.

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Stative transitives (such as fit, have, hold, possess – Swan 1980) cannot passivize: The thief was held by the police. *Great wealth was possessed by the king. The city was soon possessed by the enemy. (Palmer 1978). Passivization cannot apply ti sentences with reflexives and reciprocals. The by-phrase cannot always be omitted in passives. Predicates with complex event structure (accomplishments) and a ‘constructive’ interpretation require an obligatory by-phrase in the passive for event identification reasons. The by-phrase can be omitted even with these predicates if other elements (other adjuncts, the progressive or the perfect) present in the sentence can identify the event. Be-passives and Get-passives. English passive sentences have a counterpart in which the auxiliary be is replaced by get. Be is an auxiliary, get is a full lexical verb. This difference can be seen in their behavior with respect to do-support: be can move to Inflection (John was struck by lightning. Was John struck by lightning?), whereas get cannot (John got struck by lightning. *Got John struck by lighning?). Be, like genuine auxiliaries, is semantically vacuous, whereas get still has some substantive content. It denotes an incipient process. Be-passive sentences are mainly interpreted as focusing on the result of the action whereas get-passive sentences focus on the event and on its effect on the Theme/Patient. The two main semantic features which distinguish between the get- and the be- passive are: [+/-Agent control] and [+/-punctuality]. The be-passive can be defined as: [-punctual] [+Agent control]. Its grammatical subject plays no part in determining the situation which the sentence depicts. The get-passive can be defined as [+punctual] [+inchoative] [-Agent control]. Its subject is interpreted as being responsible for the situation which the predicate denotes. They have different aspect and control properties. The subject in a get passive sentence seems to be more in control of the action than the subject in a be passive sentence, which has no control over the action. The detrimental/non-detrimental interpretation derives from the context in which the passive sentence occurs. Get-passive has a pragmatic function: it signals the speaker’s stance towards the event denoted by the sentence and the grammatical subject.