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abstract: This thesis seeks to defend transitivity as a rational constraint on preferences against two putative counterexamples to transitivity. This thesis is divided into three sections. In the first section, I consider two famous and popular arguments in defense of transitivity and argue they are insufficient to adequately defend transitivity. I then outline a desiderata for successful arguments in defense of transitivity and identify some basic assumptions I will be making throughout the thesis. In section two, I consider the first putative counterexample to transitivity: Quinn’s Puzzle of the Self-Torturer. I offer two plausible interpretations of Quinn’s puzzle and argue that both fail. One because it does not genuinely induce intransitive preferences, and the other because the situation it requires is logically impossible. I conclude this section by defending my arguments against known objections in the literature. Finally, in the third section, I consider a counterexample to transitivity from Larry Temkin that has received little attention in the literature. I argue that while the initial counterexample is unpersuasive it can be augmented and made into a more forceful argument. I then argue that this improved counterexample fails due to some erroneous assumptions prevalent in the literature on incomparability. I conclude the thesis with a brief summary and some closing remarks. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Philosophy 2015

Research in communication disorders suggests that training linguistically complex forms will generalize to untrained, simpler forms with similar structural properties (see Thompson, 2007 for review). The present study investigated generalization patterns from transitive verbs to two classes of intransitive verbs following administration of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST; Edmonds, Nadeau & Kiran, 2009). Based on the Argument Structure Complexity Hypothesis (ASCH; Thompson, 2003), it was predicted that greater generalization would occur to unergatives because unergatives bear a structural relationship to transitive verbs and unaccusatives do not. Results at post-treatment supported the hypothesis with both intransitive verb types showing generalization and slightly higher effect sizes observed for unergative than for unaccusative verbs. At maintenance, this pattern was not maintained due to improvements in production of unaccusative verbs. Results support the findings of Edmonds et al. (2009) that administration of VNeST results in gains on measures of untrained, semantically related verbs as well as standardized measures of lexical retrieval and connected speech. These results also suggest that training transitive verbs results in slight generalization to untrained intransitive verbs; however, it is inconclusive whether unergative and unaccusatives intransitives show differential improvement. / Communication Sciences

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den morphosyntaktischen und derivationellen Eigenschaften von Nominalisierungen im modernen Hebräisch und ihrer strukturelle Repräsentation. Eine zentrale Fragestellung im Rahmen von ‚hybriden‘ Wortbildungen wie Nominalisierungen ist die Ähnlichkeit bzw. die Unähnlichkeit zu den ihr zugrundeliegenden Verben. Unter Heranziehung des Hebräischen, einer Sprache mit reicher morphologischer Markierung, sowohl bei Verben als auch bei Nominalisierungen, werden mehrere Divergenzen zwischen Verben und entsprechenden Nominalisierungen im Bereich der Argument- und Ereignisstruktur eliminiert. Ausgehend von der einflussreichen These der Gleichsetzung von Nominalisierung und Passivierung untersucht diese Studie die syntaktische Struktur und deren Interaktion mit dem Wortbildungsprozess der Nominalisierung und zeigt, dass Eigenschaften, die für Passivformen typisch sind, in Nominalisierungen fehlen. Dabei präsentiert diese Studie mit der Untersuchung morphosyntaktischer Faktoren und deren Beziehungen zu Nominalisierungen, der Inkonsistenzen aufzeigt. Durch einen Vergleich von etwa 3000 Verben auf Basis der Verbklassenmorphologie ergibt sich eine signifikante Asymmetrie zwischen Nominalisierungen, die eine mediale/intransitive Markierung tragen, und Nominalisierungen, die als aktiv markiert sind, wobei sich die mediale Form in zwei klar definierten syntaktischen Kontexten als weniger produktiv erweist. Dies zeigt sich auch dadurch, dass alternierende Wurzeln, also Wurzeln die sowohl aktive als auch mediale Verbformen ausbilden können, bilden ihre Nominalisierungen auf Basis ihrer aktiven Form. Auf Basis der Konzepte von Konkurrenz und Markiertheit werden diese paradigmatischen Lücken nicht als grammatisch bedingte Inkompatibilitäten analysiert, sondern als eine generelle Präferenz für weniger markierte Formen (aktiv-markierte Nominalisierungen) gegenüber komplexeren (medial-markierte Nominalisierungen), wie in der Performanz häufig zu beobachten. / This study is concerned with the properties, structural representation and derivational patterns of deverbal nouns (DNs) in Modern Hebrew. A recurring question arises in the context of such ‘hybrid’ formations: precisely how similar or far-apart are these derivatives from the verbs from which they originate? Enlisting Hebrew, a language with rich morphological marking on both verbs as well as DNs, several loci of divergence between verbs and respective DNs in the domain of argument- and event-structure are eliminated. Taking as a point of reference the influential view which equates the processes of nominalization and passivization, this study scrutinizes syntactic structure and its interaction with nominalization, showing that behaviours typical of passives are absent from DNs. a finding which weakens long-standing beliefs bearing on this class. A novel area of exploration offered in this study is the examination of morpho-syntactic factors and their interaction with nominalization, a domain where inconsistencies do arise. What emerges from a comparison of some 3000 verbs based on verb-class (templatic) morphology is a significant asymmetry between DNs carrying Middle (intransitive) marking and DNs marked as Active, wherein Middle forms are found to be less productive in two well-defined syntactic contexts. Not entirely absent, however, the same roots which fail to surface with Middle morphology are perfectly licit when derived from the corresponding Active verb (in case of alternating roots). Building on the notions of competition and markedness, such paradigmatic gaps are analysed not as grammatically-determined incompatibilities, but as a consistent preference for less-marked forms (Active-marked DNs) over more complex ones (Middle-marked DNs), a trend which lies within the realm of performance. As such, Hebrew DNs constitute a case study of the interrelations between the syntactic and morphological modules, and pragmatics.

Basée sur une analyse contrastive, cette thèse aborde la structure verbale en français et en russe. Son objectif est d’établir un regard réflexif sur les deux langues dans le but de déterminer la différence et la ressemblance dans leur construction verbale. Explorant la question des verbes de structure différente des langues concernées, elle tente également de trouver les difficultés provoquées par cette différence à l’apprentissage. Ainsi, dans cette recherche, on parle des verbes problématiques sous un angle aussi didactique que linguistique. Composé de trois chapitres, ce travail étudie dans un premier temps le statut transitif/intransitif des verbes dans les deux langues en traitant l’approche traditionnelle et moderne et met en place une étude contrastive par rapport à la question de valence. On explore la construction verbale avec complément dans le deuxième chapitre de la recherche. Dans cette partie, l’analyse parallèle des verbes est effectuée afin de repérer leur fonctionnement selon les moyens grammaticaux de chaque langue. Et finalement, la comparaison de chaque verbe considéré problématique à l’apprentissage des deux langues suivie de tableaux fait partie du dernier chapitre. La production des tests préliminaires effectués auprès des apprenants russophones constitue également cette partie pour mieux comprendre la difficulté de ces derniers lors de la communication. / Based on a contrastive analysis, this thesis deals with the verbal structure in French and Russian. Its objective is to establish a reflexive look at the two languages in order to determine the difference and the similarity in their verbal construction. Exploring the question of the verbs of different structure, it also tries to find the difficulties caused by this difference in learning. Thus, in this research, problematic verbs are spoken of in a didactic as well as linguistic angle. This work, composed of three chapters, speaks first of all about the transitive/intransitive status of verbs in both languages by treating the traditional and modern approach and sets up a contrastive study in relation to the valence question. Verbal construction is explored with complement in the second chapter of the research. In this part, the parallel analysis of the verbs is performed in order to identify their functioning according to the grammatical means of each language. And finally, the comparison of each verb considered problematical to the learning in both languages followed by tables took the part of the last chapter. The production of preliminary tests with Russian-speaking learners is also part of this work in order to better understand the difficulties of the latter during the communication.

Esta dissertação é resultado de uma pesquisa que investigou o comportamento linguístico de crianças falantes nativas de português brasileiro com relação a sentenças absolutas, que consistem em uma alternância na valência de verbos transitivos encontrada especificamente no PB, tal como Eu aperto esse botão [do videogame] e, olha lá, a bola chutou. Segundo Negrão & Viotti (2010), nas absolutas o argumento que representaria a energia responsável pela causa do evento não está presente e nem chega a ser conceitualizado. Não há, portanto, a presença de uma força indutora (Negrão & Viotti, 2010). Desenvolvemos dois experimentos: um de tarefa de produção eliciada e outro de julgamento de aceitabilidade. Nossas previsões são: (a) as absolutas serão mais produzidas com a ausência da força indutora, que seria o argumento agente; (b) alguns verbos proporcionarão mais a produção de absolutas que outros, por estarem mais propensos à supressão da força indutora; e (c) crianças produzirão mais absolutas do que passivas visto que as absolutas são menos complexas estruturalmente. As condições testadas foram: presença/ausência de um agente e tipo de verbo (mais ou menos propenso à supressão do agente). Os resultados sugerem que ambas as condições influenciaram nas respostas dos participantes, de modo que os contextos sem agente e os contextos com verbos mais propensos à supressão do agente se mostraram mais propícios às sentenças absolutas. Por fim, as crianças mais novas testadas produziram mais absolutas do que passivas, o que indica que a absoluta, por ser menos complexa, é uma estrutura mais acessível às crianças. / This dissertation is the result of a research that has investigated the linguistic behavior of Brazilian Portuguese speaking children in relation to absolutive sentences, which consist of a verb valency alternation found specifically in BP, such as Eu aperto esse botão [do videogame] e, olha lá, a bola chutou (I press this button [in the videogame] and, look, the ball kicked [in the sense that the ball was kicked]). According to Negrão & Viotti (2010), in the absolutive constructions, the argument that would represent the energy responsible for the cause of the event is not present. Actually, it is not even conceptualized. Therefore, there is no driving force (Negrão & Viotti, 2010). We developed two experiments: an elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task. Our predictions are: (a) the absolutive sentences will be produced more often in contexts without a driving force, which would be, in this case, the agent; (b) more absolutive sentences will be produced with some verbs than others, because they are more likely to suppress the driving force; and (c) children will produce more absolutive constructions than passives since the absolutive construction is structurally simpler. The tested conditions were: presence/absence of an agent and verb type (more or less likely to suppress the agent). The results suggest that both conditions influenced participants answers, so that the contexts without an agent and the contexts with verbs more likely to suppress the agent were more supportive environments for the absolutive constructions. Finally, the younger children we tested produced more absolutive constructions than passives, which indicates that, as a less complex structure, the absolutive is more accessible to children.

<p>The focus of this study is the opposition of Ludwik Fleck to the logical positivism. The main interest focuses on the mutability of knowledge and the inherent problems of incommensura-bility, as well as on Fleck´s notion of reality. Fleck emphasizes a rational and continuous de-velopment of knowledge, in contrast to Thomas Kuhn´s discontinuous and irrational devel-opment, and rejects all forms of reality independent of human beings.</p><p>Fleck´s monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Tatsache is a rich and multifac-eted inquiry into the nature of knowledge, emphasizing the social and historical aspects of the epistemology of science at the expense of certain logical precepts. With his concepts thought style and thought collective, Fleck is generally acknowledged as a precursor to Kuhn´s con-cepts of paradigm and scientific community. Fleck maintains a relativistic view of science and develops a comparative epistemology which challenges the logical positivists in many re-spects. He dismisses every form of reality and has therefore been regarded as an idealist, al-though there are certain aspects to his epistemology which point toward an implicit ontology based upon his idea of the passive components of knowledge.</p><p>The chief epistemological works of Fleck and his contemporary Karl Popper were published within a year of each other, 1934 and 1935, respectively, by which Popper had left the Continent to eventually become one of the leading British philosophers, while Fleck spent several years during the Second World War as a prisoner in Nazi camps. Both were firmly opposed to the logical positivism, one as a critical rationalist, the other as a sceptical relativist. Fleck was also a forerunner to the constructivist ideas and the Strong Programme.</p><p>The word ”incommensurability” has been ascribed Kuhn but the term had already been used by Fleck in 1927. The ”incommensurability thesis” dominates Kuhn´s notion of scientific revolutions and is accordingly the reason why scientific progress is considered an irrational process. The debate on the incommensurability thesis has continued to interest epistemologists and philosophers of science and many solutions have been suggested, some in line with the one proposed by Fleck.</p>

The focus of this study is the opposition of Ludwik Fleck to the logical positivism. The main interest focuses on the mutability of knowledge and the inherent problems of incommensura-bility, as well as on Fleck´s notion of reality. Fleck emphasizes a rational and continuous de-velopment of knowledge, in contrast to Thomas Kuhn´s discontinuous and irrational devel-opment, and rejects all forms of reality independent of human beings. Fleck´s monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Tatsache is a rich and multifac-eted inquiry into the nature of knowledge, emphasizing the social and historical aspects of the epistemology of science at the expense of certain logical precepts. With his concepts thought style and thought collective, Fleck is generally acknowledged as a precursor to Kuhn´s con-cepts of paradigm and scientific community. Fleck maintains a relativistic view of science and develops a comparative epistemology which challenges the logical positivists in many re-spects. He dismisses every form of reality and has therefore been regarded as an idealist, al-though there are certain aspects to his epistemology which point toward an implicit ontology based upon his idea of the passive components of knowledge. The chief epistemological works of Fleck and his contemporary Karl Popper were published within a year of each other, 1934 and 1935, respectively, by which Popper had left the Continent to eventually become one of the leading British philosophers, while Fleck spent several years during the Second World War as a prisoner in Nazi camps. Both were firmly opposed to the logical positivism, one as a critical rationalist, the other as a sceptical relativist. Fleck was also a forerunner to the constructivist ideas and the Strong Programme. The word ”incommensurability” has been ascribed Kuhn but the term had already been used by Fleck in 1927. The ”incommensurability thesis” dominates Kuhn´s notion of scientific revolutions and is accordingly the reason why scientific progress is considered an irrational process. The debate on the incommensurability thesis has continued to interest epistemologists and philosophers of science and many solutions have been suggested, some in line with the one proposed by Fleck.

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2016-01-06T14:43:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1250752 bytes, checksum: f895e82ebec46f142680436b04edadd0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-06T14:43:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1250752 bytes, checksum: f895e82ebec46f142680436b04edadd0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-30 / The syntactic-semantic-discursive agglutination is a process concerning to the junction of the complement in the verb designed by Traditional Grammar (GT) as intransitive, having no material occupation as the object. However, in some situations, these verbs can be used like complement materialized in the syntax plan, with the syntactic-semantic-discursive detachment. This phenomenon is caused by enunciative reasons. Therefore, we had as main objective to analyze the syntactic-semantic-discursive agglutination and detachment of the verbs defined by the Traditional Grammar in an enunciation perspective, using, for this, printed reports. In order to answer this need, we developed the following specific objectives: to characterize the syntactic-semantic-discursive agglutination/ detachment as an enunciative phenomenon; analyze the meaning of a linguistic element (the verb) through two biases: theme (contextual meaning) and linguistic significance (in dictionaries sense) by combining with the active comprehension; understand how the syntactic-semantic-discursive agglutination and detachment are used in targeted verbs in a printed report, observing the thematic content, compositional elements and the style; discuss the factors that provide the syntactic-semantic-discursive agglutination the syntactic-semantic-discursive detachment in selected verbs for analysis. For this purpose, we used the theoretical construct defended by Bakhtin / Voloshinov (1981, 1926), Bakhtin (2003), as well as researchers of the linguistic thought from the Bakhtin Circle. Our corpus comprised twenty-two printed reports of Veja magazine, published in the period from 1968 to 2013 and selected in <http://veja.abril.com.br/acervodigital>. At first, we discuss the thematic content, compositional elements and the style of chosen reports. Subsequently, we analyze the syntactic-semantic-discursive agglutination in the verbs die, live, sunrise, fall, mature, aging, fight, react, dream, cry, smile, sleep, grow and laugh. And subsequently, we described some of the syntactic-semantic-discursive detachment in some of these verbs. Thus, we can say that, in this work, a syntactic phenomenon (the intransitive verbs) was observed by the Theory of Enunciation, according to Bakhtin / Voloshinov (1981). / A aglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva é um processo que diz respeito à junção do complemento no verbo concebido pela Gramática Tradicional (GT) como intransitivo, não tendo a ocupação material do lugar de objeto. No entanto, em algumas situações, estes verbos podem ser usados com o complemento materializado no plano da sintaxe, havendo a desaglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva. Este fenômeno é provocado por motivações de ordem enunciativa. Para tanto, tivemos como objetivo geral analisar a (des)aglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva em uma perspectiva enunciativa nos verbos definidos pela GT como intransitivos, utilizando, para isso, reportagens impressas. No propósito de atender a esta necessidade, desenvolvemos os seguintes objetivos específicos: caracterizar a aglutinação e a desaglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva como um fenômeno enunciativo; analisar o sentido de um elemento linguístico (verbo) através de dois vieses: tema (sentido contextual) e significação linguística (sentido dicionarizado), associando à compreensão ativa; compreender como a aglutinação e a desaglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva são usadas nos verbos escolhidos em uma reportagem impressa, observando o conteúdo temático, os elementos composicionais e o estilo; discutir os fatores que proporcionam a (des)aglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva nos verbos selecionados para a análise. Para tal propósito, recorremos ao construto teórico defendido por Bakhtin/Volochinov (1981, 1926), Bakhtin (2003), além de pesquisadores do pensamento linguístico do Círculo de Bakhtin. Nosso corpus foi composto por vinte e duas reportagens impressas da Revista Veja, publicadas no período de 1968 a 2013 e pesquisadas no site <http://veja.abril.com.br/acervodigital>. A princípio, discutimos o conteúdo temático, os elementos composicionais e o estilo das reportagens escollhidas. Posteriormente, analisamos a aglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva nos verbos morrer, viver, nascer, cair, amadurecer, envelhecer, lutar, reagir, sonhar, chorar, sorrir, dormir, gritar, crescer e rir. E, posteriormente, discorremos sobre a desaglutinação sintático-semântico-discursiva em alguns destes verbos. Com isso, podemos dizer que, em nossa tese, um fenômeno sintático (os verbos intransitivos) foi observado à luz da Teoria da Enunciação, conforme pontuaram Bakhtin/Volochinov (1981).

Esta dissertação é resultado de uma pesquisa que investigou o comportamento linguístico de crianças falantes nativas de português brasileiro com relação a sentenças absolutas, que consistem em uma alternância na valência de verbos transitivos encontrada especificamente no PB, tal como Eu aperto esse botão [do videogame] e, olha lá, a bola chutou. Segundo Negrão & Viotti (2010), nas absolutas o argumento que representaria a energia responsável pela causa do evento não está presente e nem chega a ser conceitualizado. Não há, portanto, a presença de uma força indutora (Negrão & Viotti, 2010). Desenvolvemos dois experimentos: um de tarefa de produção eliciada e outro de julgamento de aceitabilidade. Nossas previsões são: (a) as absolutas serão mais produzidas com a ausência da força indutora, que seria o argumento agente; (b) alguns verbos proporcionarão mais a produção de absolutas que outros, por estarem mais propensos à supressão da força indutora; e (c) crianças produzirão mais absolutas do que passivas visto que as absolutas são menos complexas estruturalmente. As condições testadas foram: presença/ausência de um agente e tipo de verbo (mais ou menos propenso à supressão do agente). Os resultados sugerem que ambas as condições influenciaram nas respostas dos participantes, de modo que os contextos sem agente e os contextos com verbos mais propensos à supressão do agente se mostraram mais propícios às sentenças absolutas. Por fim, as crianças mais novas testadas produziram mais absolutas do que passivas, o que indica que a absoluta, por ser menos complexa, é uma estrutura mais acessível às crianças. / This dissertation is the result of a research that has investigated the linguistic behavior of Brazilian Portuguese speaking children in relation to absolutive sentences, which consist of a verb valency alternation found specifically in BP, such as Eu aperto esse botão [do videogame] e, olha lá, a bola chutou (I press this button [in the videogame] and, look, the ball kicked [in the sense that the ball was kicked]). According to Negrão & Viotti (2010), in the absolutive constructions, the argument that would represent the energy responsible for the cause of the event is not present. Actually, it is not even conceptualized. Therefore, there is no driving force (Negrão & Viotti, 2010). We developed two experiments: an elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task. Our predictions are: (a) the absolutive sentences will be produced more often in contexts without a driving force, which would be, in this case, the agent; (b) more absolutive sentences will be produced with some verbs than others, because they are more likely to suppress the driving force; and (c) children will produce more absolutive constructions than passives since the absolutive construction is structurally simpler. The tested conditions were: presence/absence of an agent and verb type (more or less likely to suppress the agent). The results suggest that both conditions influenced participants answers, so that the contexts without an agent and the contexts with verbs more likely to suppress the agent were more supportive environments for the absolutive constructions. Finally, the younger children we tested produced more absolutive constructions than passives, which indicates that, as a less complex structure, the absolutive is more accessible to children.