Limited research is available about how lexical and phonological verb properties interact with past tense production by children. Frequency of the inflected form and phonotactic probability might serve as input-driven alternatives to previously-studied factors such as lexical aspect and coda composition. Archival elicited production data from 4-9 year old children with typical language (N = 24) and specific language impairment (N=14) using 108 two-clause complex sentences/85 different verbs were analyzed for past tense use, coda composition, telicity, phonotactic probability (Vitevitch & Luce, 2004), and lexical frequency (CHILDES; MacWhinney, 2000). Several regression models were considered, including one with only categorical factors (e.g. obstruent/continuant ending), one with only continuous factors (e.g. average biphone probability), one with only phonological factors, one with only lexical factors, and several mixed models. Diagnostic status and verb regularity accounted for the majority of the variance. The combination of lexical frequency of the inflected form with residuals of stem lexical frequency was the best lexical model. Place and manner information for the final consonant of the stem comprised the best phonological model. These two models combined into a final overall predictive model.

La alternancia ser/estar ha inspirado numerosos estudios y, consecuentemente, una significativa variedad de conceptos técnicos. Ante este panorama, proponemos avanzar hacia un refinamiento de los parámetros aspectuales empleados, con énfasis en los niveles lingüísticos en los que se originan y en la diferenciación entre semántica léxica/construccional. A partir de diagnósticos específicos, proponemos: primero, que ser y estar se alejan de la noción estándar de cópula y verbo estativo y son cuanto menos ambiguas respecto al tipo eventivo de las construcciones que articulan; segundo, que propiedades asignadas en la literatura no responden a lacópula, sino a la construcción; tercero, que la delimitación [boundedness] capta más eficientemente las situación de ser/estar, como propiedad semántica diferente y lógicamente distinguible de la perfectividad y telicidad. / Spanish copulas have inspired a vast amount of studies involving a significant number of technical concepts in their description. Against this background, we concentrate on the need to refine the technical parameters used, focusing on the linguistic domains where they are encoded and on the distinction between lexical and constructional semantics. Building on specific tests, we propose that ser and estar: (i) depart from both the standard notion of copula (semantically trivial verb) and of stative verb (lacking temporal structure) and are at least ambiguous as for the eventive type of construction they render; (ii) that many properties observed in the literature do not actually ensue from to the copula per se, but rather from the construction they head; (iii) and that the parameter boundedness best captures their situation, as long as it is conceived as a different semantic property, logically distinguishable from perfectivity telicity.

This dissertation examines the interplay of Situation Aspect and Viewpoint Aspect in two classes of constructions in Polish: i) anticausatives with and without Dative subjects, ex. (Jankowi) złamały się okulary John broke the glasses involuntarily / The glasses broke; and ii) Factual Imperfectives, ex. Jadłam obiad I have eaten my dinner. With the first type of construction, the concern is why the unintentional causer reading is obtainable only in telic contexts and how two classes of Polish anticausatives – one with prefixed verbs and one with unprefixed verbs – differ structurally. The question that arises with analyses of Factual Imperfective constructions (FIs) is about the untypical role of imperfective aspect: how is it possible that the imperfective morphemes that the Slavic literature (almost) unanimously pairs with English Progressives do not neutralize telicity as the Progressive does? The dissertation finds evidence supporting the view that Slavic lexical prefixes are telicity markers and secondary predicates (cf. Svenonius 2004, Žaucer 2009). It argues that imperfectives that lack any aspectual morpheme and have the accusative case assigned to a direct object, nonetheless possess a non-overt aspectual operator located in the domain of Viewpoint Aspect. The dissertation enriches the recent discussions concerned with the puzzle of how to account for various readings of the imperfective (Cipria & Roberts 2000, Hacquard 2006, Deo 2009) by providing a semantic analysis of an interpretation not attested in languages like French, Italian and Spanish on which the discussions have focused so far. I argue that the Russian and Polish patterns dubbed as Existential Factual Imperfectives (cf. Grønn 2003) carry a silent Epistemic Modal that selects the imperfective due to its right semantic type: <s,t> in contrast to the <t> type of the perfective. From a cross-linguistic perspective, this study is relevant for syntactic and semantic theories of aspect in natural language especially for the theory of imperfectivity. From a language specific perspective, this study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the particular aspect-related conditions that play a role in licensing oblique (Dative) causers in Polish.

Aspect semantically denotes two concepts: eventualities and their endpoints, or the speaker’s perspective of an event. These aspectual distinctions respectively refer to telicity and perfectively. Telicity specifically denotes the internal temporal organization of events in regards to their endpoint (telic) or lack thereof (atelic). The telic/atelic distinction has been studied in semantics using logical analysis, in particular mereological relations (the relation of parts to parts and parts within wholes) and scalar theory (a representation of measurement composed of degrees that are partially or totally ordered). This thesis presents a psycholinguistic experiment investigating the cognitive nature of one component of aspectual realization, namely telicity, in English. In accordance with the predictions made by mereological and scalar theories for the semantic composition of telicity, it is hypothesized that telic constructions are semantically more complex than atelic constructions. This complexity specifically refers to maximalization; a process which Filip (2008) predicts takes place exclusively in the derivation of telic events. This prediction is made under the assumption that a correlation exists between the number of derivational steps and cognitive complexity. Specifically, constructions which involve a greater number of steps in their derivation are hypothesized to also involve a greater amount of cognitive resources in order to be successfully computed. This correlation is supported by recent research investigating the role of working memory in sentence comprehension. Recent studies have found constructions with greater syntactic derivational complexity are susceptible to interference and processing trade-offs when processed under heavy memory loads. Based on this, if telic constructions involve a greater derivational complexity compared to atelic counterparts, they therefore can be hypothesized to be more susceptible to interference and processing trade-offs from increased memory loads. The results of the experiment provide evidence supporting this prediction, ultimately suggesting telicity is a grammatically more complex process than atelicity. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

No description available.

In the discussion of the relationship between aspect and Aktionsart, it is generally agreed that aspect is a feature of the tense-form and Aktionsart depends on tense-form together with other clausal and contextual features such as lexical meaning and adjuncts used with the verb. Recent works have tried to find predictable patterns of meaning that emerge when a certain set of clausal factors and lexical features combine with one of the aspects. Most of these works are theoretical in nature and heavily rely on Zeno Vendler's quadripartition of lexical classes as part of their theory. These works are confined to the Greek of the New Testament, and often produce different and even incompatible results. This study presents an empirical approach to verify these results. Following previous works on corpus linguistics to analyze Hellenistic Greek, this study attempts to look for empirical evidence regarding what role lexical semantics and other contextual factors contribute to the choice of aspect. Using a body of text that forms a representative sample of Hellenistic text, the goal is to investigate distribution of tense-forms and lexis in the literature. Lexis are tested in groups according to Vendler's classes and also individually, and other contextual factors will also be considered. To narrow down this study to a manageable scope, the semantic feature of telicity is chosen for examination. This feature is foundational in the formulation of Vendler's taxonomy and is often mentioned with or even conflated with the perfective aspect. It has not been adequately demonstrated whether or not aspectual choices in Koine Greek are dependent on Vendler's telicity distinction. It is argued that, based on empirical evidence, telicity and perfectivity are not related in a systematic manner in Koine Greek. As a corollary, Atkionsart should be considered as an interpretive category, meaning that the value cannot be systematized in a linguistic analysis but can only be determined in the process of interpretation. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The principal aim of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive account of the meaning of keep V-ing constructions, see (1a) and (1b). (1) a. Mary kept winning (again and again). (1) b. John kept running (for another ten minutes). On the basis of a systematic study of combinations of keep with predicates of different aktionsarts, it is shown that keep can give rise to two different readings which share the overall meaning of ‘continued activity’. It is argued that the two readings of keep V-ing arise from different aspectual properties of the predicate in the complement clause. Under the first reading, labelled the continuative-iterative reading, (1a), the event in the complement clause is telic, and the interpretation is an iterative reading. Under the second reading, labelled the continuative reading, (1b), the event in the complement clause is atelic, and the interpretation is a reading of nonstop continuation. It is argued that keep combines with activity predicates in the relevant construction type, that is, with dynamic, durative and atelic events, and that keep has the ability to induce aspect shift when combining with predicates that are not inherent activities. Thus, in (1a), a punctual and telic winning event is iterated, creating a series which in itself is durative and atelic. In (1b), the running event is already durative and atelic. By comparing keep V-ing with the progressive construction be V-ing, (2), and with two other continuative constructions, continue V-ing, (3), and V on, (4), it is shown that keep readily shifts a telic predicate into an atelic reading by taking scope over the entire event, (1a), but cannot take scope over an internal part of a telic event. Both be V-ing, (2), and continue V-ing, (3), are able to take scope over an internal part of a telic event. (2) John was building the house. (3) John continued building the house. (4) John ran on. In addition, unlike continue V-ing and V on, keep V-ing does not necessarily denote continuation of an event which has already been initiated.

This dissertation provides a syntactic representation of Motion Predicates (MPs) expressed by series of verbs known as Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Southern Tati –an Indo-European language spoken mainly in the Northwestern parts of Iran. This study addresses the sub-eventive decomposition of MPs by following the theoretical framework established by generative-constructivists like Borer (2005) and Ramchand (2008), as implemented for MPs in Benedicto and Salomon (2014).This dissertation also contributes to the documentation of Southern Tati, which iscategorized by UNESCO as ‘definitely’endangered.<br>

The Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; 1996) proposes that the inherent lexical aspect of verbs plays a major role in the acquisition of tense-aspect (TA) morphology in both first and second language. This has been attested in most studies on TA morphology conducted with past and present TA markers. The present study examined the acquisition of Present Perfect, a rather insufficiently studied TA form from a Prototype Account, in two of its four functions, Experiential Past and Persistent Situation. The subjects were 85 L1-Spanish English language learners at intermediate and advanced levels. All participants had received formal instruction in English grammar as part of their curriculum. The data was collected through a forced-choice task with 16 situations equally distributed between the two Present Perfect functions and between telic and atelic verbs of four semantic categories: stative, activities, achievements, and accomplishments. Participants had to choose the correct verb form out of three options (Present, Past or Present Perfect) that would best complete the sentences given. The results showed evidence of clear developmental stages in the acquisition of the Present Perfect. The stages were characterized by an important role of proficiency level and lexical aspect as the more proficient participants showed a more accurate use of the target form. In addition, both the intermediate and advanced groups showed a tendency towards employing Persistent Situation with atelic verb types, whereas they used Experiential Past with telic verbs. Contrary to the predictions of the AH, the use that seemed to be first acquired and easier to learn was Persistent Situation, which obtained higher correctness rates in both groups than Experiential Past. When the results were analyzed across each aspectual verb type, the pattern of acquisition was less clear and thereby partly met the claims of the AH. This irregular trend attested in the data encouraged the argument that the acquisition of the functions of the Present Perfect may not be solely influenced by lexical aspect and verb prototypicality but several other factors may be at stake, such as sentence-type effect, input distribution, L1 transfer and rote-learned forms. Therefore, developmental stages in the acquisition of the Present Perfect should be examined in view of an interplay of "multiple factors" as already proposed by Sugaya and Shirai (2007), which work simultaneously and in a complementary fashion in the acquisitional process of TA morphology.

Ce travail aura pour but d’explorer l’interface sémantique-syntaxe des « constructions » avec les prédicats secondaires, résultatifs et dépictifs. Une attention particulière sera donnée au problème du choix des sujets (ou des hôtes) de prédication pour ces deux types de prédicats, ainsi qu’à la classe aspectuelle lexicale du verbe à la base de la construction.Dans la première partie, nous introduisons divers patterns de la construction résultative et expliquons le principe de base qui régit la syntaxe de ces constructions, à savoir la Restriction sur l’objet direct. D’abord nous réviserons la sémantique des adjectifs gradables, étant donné que les propriétés de l’échelle d’une propriété introduite par l’adjectif définissent la structure événemen-tielle/aspectuelle des constructions résultatives, notamment la distinction entre les constructions résultatives à contrôle et à marquage exceptionnel casuel. Après avoir écarté un nombre de prétendus contre-exemples à la Restriction DOR, nous réaffirmerons sa validité, notamment en tant que diagnostic de l’inaccusativité en anglais. Après avoir étudier le problème des objets non-sélectionnés, nous verrons pourquoi le russe n’a pas ce type de construction, et, conjointement, pourquoi il ne doit pas être classifié comme une langue satellite-framed, étant donné que le paramètre qui autorise les constructions résultatives dans une langue est également responsable pour la classification des langues en satellite-framed ou verb-framed.La deuxième partie sera consacré aux prédicats dépictifs, notamment aux contraintes qui pèsent sur le choix du contrôleur pour ce type de prédication secondaire, ainsi qu’aux propriétés des adjectifs dépictifs en comparaison avec d’autres types d’adjoints participant-oriented. Nous étudions la distribution des adjectifs formes longues et formes courtes en russe, conditionnée par les propriétés d’accord qui les distinguent et esquissons un processus historique à l’origine de leur distribution dans la langue d’aujourd’hui. / The aim of this dissertation is to explore the syntactic-semantic interface of ‘constructions’ which contain secondary predicates – either depictive or resultative. The main problems will be to deal (i) with the selection of the subjects (or hosts) of these types of predicates and (ii) with the aspectual class of the verbs used in these sentences.In the first part, the various patterns implied in resultative clauses will be examined, leading to the conclusion that the basic principle that governs the syntax of these clauses can be identified with the ‘Restriction on direct objects’ – or RDO. First, the semantics of gradable adjectives will be revisited, taking into account the scalarity properties these adjectives contain, which determine the eventive/ aspectual structures of resultative sentences and the distinction between Control structures and Exceptional Case Marking sentences. After invalidating many would-be counter-examples to the RDO, its validity will be reasserted, notably as a diagnostic of unaccusativity in English. Next, after analysing the problem of unselected object arguments, the reason will be shown why Russian does not possess this type of structure, and why it cannot be characterised as a ‘satellite-framed’ language either – given that the parameter which allows specific resultative structures in any language also determines its classification as satellite-framed or verb-framed.The second part of the dissertation is devoted to depictive predicates – in particular (i) to the constraints that determine the choice of the Controller in this type of secondary predication, and (ii) to the relevant properties of depictive adjectives in contra-distinction to other types of adjuncts, often identified as ‘participant-oriented’. Finally, the distribution of those Russian adjectives which possess long and short forms, which is conditioned by specific agreement or concord properties, is examined, leading to a tentative reconstruction of a diachronic process which has led to their distribution in today's Russian.