The interaction of compositional semantics and event semantics

Abstract

Davidsonian event semantics is often taken to form an unhappy marriage with compositional semantics. For example, it has been claimed to be problematic for semantic accounts of quantification (Beaver and Condoravdi, in: Aloni et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the 16th Amsterdam Colloquium, 2007), for classical accounts of negation (Krifka, in: Bartsch et al. (eds.) Semantics and contextual expression, 1989), and for intersective accounts of verbal coordination (Lasersohn, in Plurality, conjunction and events, 1995). This paper shows that none of this is the case, once we abandon the idea that the event variable is bound at sentence level, and assume instead that verbs denote existential quantifiers over events. Quantificational arguments can then be given a semantic account, negation can be treated classically, and coordination can be modeled as intersection. The framework presented here is a natural choice for researchers and fieldworkers who wish to sketch a semantic analysis of a language without being forced to make commitments about the hierarchical order of arguments, the argument-adjunct distinction, the default scope of quantifiers, or the nature of negation and coordination.

Modification of DPs by epistemic adverbs

“…A standard assumption in neo-Davidsonian event semantics is that thematic roles (and prepositions) turn DPs into modifiers of verbal projections. Following Champollion (2015), we assume that this happens low in the semantic composition tree. Since we are not dealing with irreducibly quantificational DPs, we can assume that dependents combine with event predicates intersectively.…”

Towards a Syntax-Semantics Interface for Latin

“…Linking Semantics is a family of theories that match argument variables with case or grammatical relation (Beaver & Condoravdi 2007;Eckardt 2010;Champollion 2015). In socalled Easy Linking semantics the argument variables are indexed with a case label, for instance x Nom , x Acc ; one could just as well use grammatical relations (x Subj , x Obj ) or semantic roles (x Agt , x Pat ).…”

Covert distributivity in algebraic event semantics

“…I have argued elsewhere to the contrary that the type of verbs and verbal projections should be taken to be vt, t if we want to account for the interaction of verbs with quantification and other scope-taking phenomena (Champollion 2011a(Champollion , 2015c. Here I stick with the more standard v, t assumption, in part in order to make sure the system remains compatible with the majority of existing theories and in part because the lower type is sufficient for present purposes.…”