published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In this work, the primary goal will be to construct the most descriptively and explanatorily adequate analysis possible to account for the complementary distribution of the Spanish copula verbs ser and estar. Over the past several decades, numerous theoretical accounts have been put forth in an attempt to accomplish this goal. Though such accounts accurately predict most types of stative sentences with the two copulas, they often fall short of predicting a significant number of them that are used in everyday speech. The first chapters of this dissertation will be devoted to reviewing a number of existing approaches that have been taken to account for the uses of ser and estar by testing their theoretical viability and descriptive adequacy. Among these are traditional conventions such as the inherent qualities vs. current condition distinction and the analysis of estar as an indicator of change. Those of a more recent theoretical framework, which will receive the most attention, include the application of Kratzer's (1995) individual-level vs. stage-level distinction to stative predicates and Maienborn's (2005) discourse-based interpretation of Spanish copulative predication. Schmitt's (2005) compositionally-based analysis of Portuguese ser and estar, which treats only estar as an aspectual copula, will be of special interest. After testing each of these analyses, it will be shown that the least costly and most accurate course to take for analyzing ser and estar is to treat both verbs as aspectual morphemes along the lines of Luján (1981). As aspectual copulas, ser and estar denote the aspectual distinction [±Perfective]. In my proposed analysis, I will argue that aspect applies to both events and states, but does so internally and externally respectively. By adapting Verkuyl's (2004) feature algebra to states, I will posit that aspect for stative predication is compositionally calculated, and the individual aspectual values for ser and estar remain constant in co-composition. In light of its descriptive adequacy for Spanish stative sentences and universality in natural language, it will also be shown that the [±Perfective] aspectual distinction is very strong in terms of explanatory adequacy as well. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Curriculum and Educational Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

English exhibits a rich apparatus of tense, aspect, time adverbials and other expressions that can be used to order states of affairs with respect to each other, or to locate them at a point in time with respect to the moment of speech. Ideally one would want a semantics for these expressions to demonstrate that an orderly relationship exists between any one expression and the meanings it conveys. Yet most existing linguistic and formal semantic accounts leave something to be desired in this respect, describing natural language temporal categories as being full of ambiguities and indetenninacies, apparently escaping a uniform semantic description. It will be argued that this anomaly stems from the assumption that the semantics of these expressions is directly related to the linear conception of time familiar from temporal logic or physics - an assumption which can be seen to underly most of the current work on tense and aspect. According to these theories, the cognitive work involved in the processing of temporal discourse consists of the ordering of events as points or intervals on a time line or a set of time lines. There are, however, good reasons for wondering whether this time concept really is the one that our linguistic categories are most directly related to; it will be argued that a semantics of temporally referring expressions and a theory of their use in defining the temporal relations of events require a different and more complex structure underlying the meaning representations than is commonly assumed. A semantics will be developed, based on the assumption that categories like tense, aspect, aspectual adverbials and propositions refer to a mental representation of events that is structured on other than purely temporal principles, and to which the notion of a nucleus or consequentially related sequence of preparatory process, goal event and consequent state is central. It will be argued that the identification of the correct ontology is a logical preliminary to the choice of any particular formal representation scheme, as well as being essential in the design of natural language front-ends for temporal databases. It will be shown how the ontology developed here can be implemented in a database that contains time-related information about events and that is to be queried by means of natural language utterances.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1993. / Includes tables. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Clifford Hill. Dissertation Committee: Jo Anne Kleifgen. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-157).

Mémoire (M.éd.)-- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2002. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-160).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio State University, 1978. / Bibliography: p. 258-273.

Originally published as author's thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1974. / Bibliography: p. 206-211.