Aspectual classification of verbs

Aspectual classification of verbs
LG352 Unit 2 Continued Aspectual classification of verbs

Aspectual classification of verbs
Not all verbs describe actions (Unit 1) STATES Situations which are constant over a period of time: like, know, resemble, … EVENTS Situations which involve change over time: hit, open, arrive, put, write … Situations ‘ATELIC’ (OPEN-ENDED) ACTIONS/PROCESSES Events which can continue indefinitely: laugh, dance, run, increase, … ‘TELIC’ EVENTS Events which have a natural culmination ‘ACCOMPLISHMENTS’ Culmination is preceded by an activity or process: write an essay, walk to the shop ‘ACHIEVEMENTS’ Transition from one state to another open the door, put the book on the table,

Culmination (transition)
A visual representation of aspectual types State Atelic event Culmination Accomplishment Process / activity Resulting state Achievement Culmination (transition) Similar to Accomplishments except there is no significant action or process leading up to the culmination Preceding state Resulting state

States: know, believe, like, understand, resemble, remain, belong, ...
Do not readily occur in the progressive form (States are Atelic) Telic events: Duration of the event can be expressed by phrases like in three hours or it took three hours to..., but not by for three hours. With the progressive form, there is no entailment that the culmination was (or ever will be) reached. Accomplishments: write an essay, walk to the station, build a house, mend the bicycle, … Achievements: die, arrive at the station, put the book on the table, … Some achievement verbs do not readily allow duration to be expressed by in three hours etc. though they are OK with it took three hours to ... (??John arrived at the station in three hours vs It took three hours to arrive at the station.) Atelic events: dance, run, laugh, complain, talk, travel, work, shiver, suffer, spin, increase, ... Duration of the event can be expressed by phrases like for three hours, but not by in three hours or it took three hours to....

Jack will write the essay in two days
Telicity and the expression of duration for five minutes / days / etc. in five minutes / days / etc. Tom worked ___ Sue knew Dick ___ Harry danced ___ Mary lived here ___ Tom wrote the essay ___ Bill ate the sandwich ___ Kate solved the problem ___ Jack built the house ___ for: duration of a non-telic event or state in: duration of a telic event (mainly accomplishments) NB. When describing future events, in can have a different use (in five minutes = ‘five minutes from now’) which is not relevant here. With telic events in the future, in is potentially ambiguous: Jack will write the essay in two days

Which of the following sentences can be modified by for three seconds / hours / days/ years etc. and which by in three seconds / hours etc.? John waited Sue wrote the essay Bill solved the problem The baby slept The burglar opened the safe Alice opened the restaurant The secretary opened envelopes Billy ate the sandwich Billy ate sandwiches Billy ate Harry knew Sally Harry met Sally Polly arrived in London Jack reached the station Jack received an answer Jack received a beating Try to identify the various factors which determine your judgements

Tom opened the window for five minutes The burglar opened the safe in five minutes Telicity may depend on factors other than the meaning of the verb itself Tom ran for five minutes Tom ran to the shop in five minutes Tom ran a mile in five minutes Tom ran round the field for twenty minutes Tom ran round the field in twenty minutes Sue read letters for five minutes Sue read for five minutes Sue read the letter in five minutes

LG352 Unit 3 Auxiliary verbs

Auxiliary verbs have a number of properties which distinguish them from lexical verbs (‘main’ verbs) – the N-I-C-E properties: N Negation: John can’t swim; Sue isn’t working; It may not happen *John swims not; *Sue likes not Bill I Inversion/interrogation: Can John swim?; Has Joe left?; Is Sue working? *Swims John?; *Likes Sue Bill? *Wants John to swim? *Seems Tom to be ill? C Coda/context: Yes, he can; Joe has left, hasn’t he; Mary is too *Yes, he wants; *Jo likes Bill and Mary likes too E Emphasis (on truth of sentence): He can swim; He has left; She is working vs contrastive interpretation with lexical verbs: I bought the book (I didn’t steal it)

‘Do-support’ With lexical verbs, the dummy auxiliary do must be used in all of the N-I-C-E contexts. Negation John doesn’t swim; Sue doesn’t like Bill Inversion/interrogation Did John swim? Does Sue like Bill? Coda/context Yes, he did; Sue likes Bill and Mary does too Emphasis Tom did swim; Sue does like Bill

In Modern English, ‘dummy’ do is only used in the N-I-C-E contexts (i
In Modern English, ‘dummy’ do is only used in the N-I-C-E contexts (i.e. do is only used when it is necessary for syntactic reasons) *John did swim *Sue does like Bill (without stress on do) Also, dummy do cannot occur with other Auxiliaries: *Joe didn’t have left *Did Tom be swimming? When do is used as a lexical verb, it does not show the N-I-C-E properties Jill did the exercise *Jill didn’t the exercise / *Jill did not the exercise Jill didn’t do the exercise *Did Jill the exercise? Did Jill do the exercise? *Did Jill the exercise Did Jill do the exercise?

With verbs which take an infinitive complement, a distinction must be made between negation of the main clause and negation of the infinitive: Tom tried to talk Tom didn’t try to talk (main clause negation) Tom tried not to talk (negation of infinitive) Tests: Reverse polarity tags (with falling intonation) Tom tried (not) to talk, didn’t he Tom didn’t try to talk, did he Neither vs so: Tom tried (not) to talk, and so did Bill Tom didn’t try to talk, and neither did Bill The contracted negative form –n’t can only express clausal negation of a finite clause.

The N-I-C-E properties as a diagnostic
Clear examples of Auxiliaries according to the N-I-C-E properties can be classified as follows: (i) Modals: can/could, may/might, must, shall/should/, will/would (with ‘bare infinitive’) (ii) ‘Perfective’: have (with V+en) (iii) Progressive: be (with V+ing) (iv) Passive: be (with V+en) (v) Dummy do

In passive sentences, get can be used in place of be
Bill got arrested (by the police) Bill was arrested (by the police) In in this use, get looks like an auxiliary verb in the sense of ‘helping verb’ But is it an auxiliary according to the NICE properties? *Bill got not arrested *Got Bill arrested? *Yes, he got *He got arrested Bill didn’t get arrested Did Bill get arrested? Yes, he did He did get arrested Bill was not arrested Was Bill arrested? Yes, he was He was arrested

Copular be also shows the N-I-C-E properties, even though it is not an Auxiliary in the traditional sense of verbs that ‘help out’ other verbs Joe isn’t happy Is Joe happy? Yes he is He is happy For some speakers of British English, some uses of ‘possessive’ have can have the N-I-C-E properties I haven’t any money Have you any money? Yes I have I have some money I don’t have any money Do you have any money? Yes I do I do have some money But do-support is more usual The item got is often inserted after have in some of its uses (particularly in British English), in which case have works like an auxiliary I’ve got some money I haven’t got any money Have you got any money Yes I have I have got some money

Restrictions on order of auxiliaries
Modal have be (prog) be (passive) V[LEXICAL] ? He must have been being threatened He may be being threatened He was being threatened The sequence been being is generally rather odd, perhaps for phonological reasons No more than one modal per clause (in Standard English) VPAUX VAUX' VAUX VP(AUX) Hypothesis: Auxiliaries are verbs which select a VP (possibly headed by another Auxiliary) as their complement

How can the restrictions on order of auxiliaries be stated
How can the restrictions on order of auxiliaries be stated? Can they be derived from other properties? Modals cannot occur as the complement of another Auxiliary (including another modal) because they have no infinitive or participle forms. (For this reason, some linguists assume that Modals are inserted in the T position rather than as the Head of a VP. I will not adopt this approach here.) Passive be must take a lexical VP as its complement because only lexical verbs (mainly transitive) have passive forms (Unit 2). This leaves us with the ordering of have and progressive be: Sue has been dancing *Sue is having danced Typically, the progressive is only possible with VPs that denote events (non-stative VPs). ‘Dancing’ is clearly an event, but ‘having danced’ seems more like a state (resulting from a ‘dancing event’.)

How can the N-I-C-E properties be accounted for?
Starting point … Although tense is realised as an inflection of the verb, it seems to express a semantic property of the clause as a whole (Unit 1)

TP T' T VP [Tense] V' V + [tense] Inflectional property e.g. [+Past] = __ed Semantic property e.g. [+Past] = ‘before now’ How do we ensure that the Inflectional tense of V matches the Semantic property encoded in T?

Two Strategies (i) Verb raising: V raises to T to combine with the tense feature TP T' VP T [+Past] V' V

Two Strategies (ii) Tense Agreement: The inflectional feature of V agrees with the Semantic feature of T TP T' Tom VP T [+Past] V' V left leave +past

A cross-linguistic difference
Adverbs can precede the verb (VP) in English but not in French Tom often takes the train *Tom souvent prend le train Adverbs can occur between the verb and direct object in French but not in English *Tom takes often the train Tom prend souvent le train A simple explanation: The adverb occupies the same structural position in both languages (e.g. adjoined to the left of the VP – Unit 1). French adopts strategy (i) (Verb-raising) but English uses strategy (ii) (Agreement)

Agreement (V remains in VP):
Right result for English Wrong result for French TP Verb raising: Wrong result for English Right result for French T' Tom VP T [-Past] often souvent VP V the train le train takes prend

What has this got to do with Auxiliaries?

Auxiliaries in English tend to precede adverbs rather than following them (at least when they are not stressed) Bill has obviously left ?Bill obviously has left Sue will probably resign ?Sue probably will resign I will refer to Adverbs like obviously and probably as ‘higher adverbs’ since they seem to modify the whole sentence rather than just the lexical VP (unlike Manner adverbs). Assumption: Higher adverbs occupy a position above the VP headed by the Auxiliary (to be discussed further in Unit 7) ‘Standard’ approach: Finite auxiliaries raise to T (across higher adverbs) like all verbs in French (but lexical verbs remain in VP in English) [TP Bill T obviously [VP[AUX] [VP left ]]] has Auxiliary contraction (generally favoured in speech): Bill’s (obviously) left Possible only when the Auxiliary and the subject are in the same projection (TP)

This shows that Adverbs can precede VPs in French
The difference between French and English Tom often takes the train *Tom souvent prend le train *Tom takes often the train Tom prend souvent le train disappears when the finite verb is an Auxiliary Tom has often taken this train Tom a souvent pris ce train This shows that Adverbs can precede VPs in French In both languages, Auxiliaries raise to T (across any intervening Adverbs) In French, but not in English, lexical verbs also raise to T Passive get again … Tom probably got arrested by the police *Tom got probably arrested by the police

How does this approach account for the N-I-C-E properties?
Negation TP PolP V T' VP Pol not T Not heads a Polarity projection (PolP) between T and VP Tom The presence of not blocks Tense agreement: *Tom not left [+Past] Auxiliaries circumvent this restriction by raising to T did If there is no Auxiliary, do is inserted in T to encode Tense VP leaving leave was

Contracted Negation In this approach it is generally assumed that the Aux in T and not in Pol are reanalysed as a single phonological word, with reduction of not to n’t. TP T' Tom obviously probably ? PolP T Problem: With contracted negation, higher adverbs can readily precede the auxiliary: Tom obviously wasn’t leaving Tom probably didn’t leave [+Past] Pol VP not was leaving did leave wasn’t didn’t If Aux is in T, what is the structural position of the Adverb?

‘Inversion’ (e.g. in questions)
V[AUX] + [Tense] VP T' TP C' CP C [+Q] Subject The Aux in T raises to the C position (in main clauses) when C has the [+Q] feature (= ‘interrogative’) – See Unit 1: Has Bill left? Since only Aux verbs raise to T, lexical verbs cannot move to C in questions: *Left Bill? If there is no Aux in T, do is inserted and raised to C: Did Bill leave? See module notes for WH-questions and other cases of ‘Subject-Auxiliary Inversion’

‘Coda/context’ (Ellipsis of contextually redundant material)
Rough hypothesis: Ellipsis of the relevant type involves deletion/omission of all overt redundant material in the complement of T. T must contain an overt element (i.e. an Aux). John can swim and [TP Mary can [VP[AUX] __ [VP swim ]]]] too Is Sue happy? Yes [TP she is [VP[AUX] __ [AP happy ]]] Jack remained rich and *[TP Jill [VP became [AP rich ]]] too If there is no Aux and the lexical verb is part of the redundant material, do is inserted in T: Jack became rich and [TP Jill did [VP become [AP rich ]]] too Bill resigned and then [TP Tom did [VP resign ]]

Some complications: Infinitival to also allows ellipsis of its complement: Jack can’t go out but he wants to (cf. ... *but he wants) Some verbs show a subtle distinction between ellipsis (with to) and an ‘absolute’ use (without to): John can’t swim, but he tries to (ellipsis) John isn’t always successful, but he tries (hard) (absolute, = ‘make an effort’) In negative sentences, not (or n’t) must be retained even when it is redundant: Tom is working but [TP Bill is [PolP not [VP[AUX] __ [VP working ]]]] Tom is not working and [TP Bill is [PolP not [VP[AUX] __ [VP working ]]]] either When there is more than one Aux, omission of the non-finite ones is optional: Tom must have been sleeping and [TP Bill must [VP have been sleeping]]] too ?[TP Bill must [VP have been sleeping]]] too [TP Bill must [VP have been sleeping]]] too

Problems with this analysis:
Contraction of the Aux is not possible (even when it is unstressed) unless the sentence is negated by not: He shouldn’t be working, but he is *... but he’s She isn’t working, but he is *but he’s He should be working, but he’s not She’s working, but he’s not In elliptical sentences, higher adverbs must precede the Aux, unless the Aux is negated by not (or the adverb is added as an afterthought): Sue hasn’t left, but Tom obviously has ... *but Tom has obviously Sue has left, but Tom obviously hasn’t Sue has left, but Tom has obviously not

Emphasis (on truth of sentence) ‘Polarity Focus’
Polarity Focus is expressed by heavy stress on the item in T (i.e. the Aux), represented by a feature [Emph] of T: Tom is working; I will do it; Sue has left Since lexical verbs do not raise to T, heavy stress on the lexical verb can only have a contrastive interpretation: Bill borrowed the book (he didn’t steal it) If there is no Aux, do must be inserted in T so that it can be stressed to express polarity Focus: Bill did steal the book

Problems with this analysis:
It is not obvious why polarity Focus should be expressed by stress on the item in T. Indeed, in negative sentences with the full form not, polarity Focus is conveyed by stress on not, not on the Aux in T: He has not left *He has not left Bill did not steal it *Bill did not steal it Once again, higher Adverbs normally precede the Aux in cases of polarity Focus: He obviously has left ?He has obviously left He probably did steal it ?He did probably steal it Except in negative sentences with the full form not: ?He obviously has not left He has obviously not left (but... He obviously did not steal it ??He did probably not steal it -- I will leave this complication aside. These problems, and those raised earlier in relation to contracted negation and ellipsis, strongly suggest that the Auxiliary is not in T in these cases.

Auxiliaries do not always raise to T
A revised analysis Auxiliaries do not always raise to T But they seem to like to raise to higher structural positions Let’s represent this informally by a icon Raise me! Some features of functional Heads (Pol, T and C) require an overt item (e.g. an Aux) to be inserted or raised to them. -n’t is a suffix and needs something to attach to [Emph] needs an overt element which can receive stress The [+Q] feature of C needs an overt element in C to indicate its presence (if or whether in complement clauses (indirect questions), an Aux in main clauses (direct questions)) In French, the Tense features of T also constitute a suffix and need a verb to attach to, but in English T can remain empty

Negation and Polarity Focus
Contracted Negation -n’t is a suffix, distinct from the full form not. It requires an Auxiliary to attach to it in the Pol position Raising the Aux to Pol satisfies its ‘raise-me ‘ property, so it doesn’t need to raise any further TP The Aux therefore remains to the right of any higher adverbs T' Tom If there is no Aux, do is attached to n’t He (obviously) didn’t leave PolP obviously Adv T PolP Pol VP n’t V VP left has Raise me!

Raising Aux to T places it to the left of any higher adverb
Full Negation: not is a complete word, so does not require (or allow?) an Aux to attach to it The presence of not blocks the agreement relation (as assumed earlier), so Aux must raise to T Raising Aux to T places it to the left of any higher adverb TP T' Tom PolP obviously Adv T PolP Pol VP not V VP left has Raise me!

It requires an Auxiliary to raise to Pol to receive stress
Polarity Focus [Emph] is a feature of Pol (not of T) and it assigns stress to the content of Pol It requires an Auxiliary to raise to Pol to receive stress Raising the Aux to Pol satisfies its ‘raise-me ‘ property, so it doesn’t need to raise any further TP The Aux therefore remains to the right of any higher adverbs T' If there is no Aux, do inserted in Pol: He (obviously) did leave Tom PolP obviously Adv [Emph] can combine with negation expressed by n’t, assigning stress to Aux+n’t T PolP Pol [Emph] VP has hasn’t V VP left has Raise me!

[Emph] now assigns stress to not (the overt content of Pol)
If [Emph] combines with the full negative form not, the Aux raises to T, across any higher adverbs, as proposed earlier. [Emph] now assigns stress to not (the overt content of Pol) TP T' Tom PolP obviously Adv T PolP Pol VP [Emph] not not V VP left has Raise me!

‘Normal’ affirmative sentences
Nothing in Pol which requires an Aux to raise to it If the Aux stays in VP (following any higher adverbs) its ‘Raise-me’ property is not satisfied and the result is somewhat odd. Raising the Aux to T (across any adverbs) satisfies the ‘Raise-me!’ property and gives a more natural result. TP T' Tom PolP obviously Adv T PolP Pol VP V VP left has Raise me!

The ‘desire’ of Auxiliaries to raise is stronger with some Auxiliaries than others
may, might and must seem quite happy to stay in their VP in ‘normal’ declarative sentences, occurring after higher Adverbs He obviously may/might resign We probably must leave ?He obviously has resigned ?He probably is leaving May, might and must are phonologically ‘heavier’ than other Auxiliaries and they don’t have contracted or reduced forms This suggests that the ‘Raise-me!’ property is partly a phonological property

Inversion (in questions)
Same as earlier analysis but without the requirement that the Aux must raise to T before raising further to C Negative questions (contracted form) Aux raises to Pol and attaches to n’t CP Aux+n’t raises to C as a unit C' C [+Q] TP T' Tom PolP T Pol VP has + n’t V VP left n’t has

Not is a complete word, so does not require (or allow
Not is a complete word, so does not require (or allow?) an Aux to attach to it. Aux raises to T to avoid the blocking effect of not on the agreement relation. Negative questions (full form) CP Aux raises on its own to C (Formal style) C' C [+Q] TP T' Tom PolP T Pol VP V VP left not has

Ellipsis Some aspects of this phenomenon remain unclear and will not be addressed here Two relevant observations (mentioned earlier) A. In elliptical sentences, higher adverbs must precede the Aux, unless the Aux is negated by not (or the adverb is added as an afterthought): Sue hasn’t left, but Tom obviously has ... *but Tom has obviously Sue has left, but Tom obviously hasn’t Sue has left, but Tom has obviously not B. In negative sentences, not (or n’t) must be retained even when it is redundant: Tom is working but [TP Bill is [PolP not [VP[AUX] __ [VP working ]]]] Tom is not working and [TP Bill is [PolP not [VP[AUX] __ [VP working ]]]] either Hypotheses: (i) Ellipsis affects redundant material below Pol (accounting directly for B) (ii) It requires Pol to contain an overt element

Ellipsis in affirmative sentences
TP T' Tom PolP obviously Adv T PolP Pol VP Ellipsis requires Pol to contain an overt element V VP left has Aux raises to Pol to satisfy this requirement, but there is no reason for it to raise further to T since its ‘Raise-me!’ property has been satisfied. It therefore follows any higher adverbs (observation A) This also explains why the Aux can’t be contracted *and Tom’s left too since Aux is not in the same projection (TP) as the Subject

Ellipsis in negative sentences with not
TP T' Bill PolP obviously Adv T PolP Pol VP not V VP working is Ellipsis requires Pol to contain an overt element But the presence of not satisfies this requirement Aux raises to T, as in other cases of full negation The Aux therefore precedes any higher adverbs And contraction is possible since Aux and the Subject are both in TP: … but Bill’s not working

Auxiliaries vs lexical verbs
Summary Superficial differences in the position of Adverbs may be due to Verb-raising English vs French Auxiliaries vs lexical verbs In English, only Auxiliaries can raise to higher positions … and they seem to prefer to Some syntactic elements require the support of an overt element: The [+Q] feature of C [Emph] and n’t Pol in elliptical sentences … forcing raising of the finite Auxiliary to the relevant position if it is not already filled … or insertion of do if there is no other Auxiliary Auxiliaries raise to T to circumvent the blocking effect of not on Tense agreement … or to satisfy their ‘Raise-me!’ preference (permitting contraction of the Auxiliary) The N-I-C-E properties are derivable from the ability of Auxiliaries to raise to higher positions

Aspectual classification of verbs

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