Verbs, Events and Telicity: A Syntax-Semantics/Pragmatics Interface Approach

动词、事件与终结性----- 基于句法—语义/语用界面的研究

主讲人：胡旭辉 博士

时间：2015-05-07 15:10:00

地点：北京大学哲学系地下B114

简介：

（Chinese follows English）

Verbs, Events and Telicity

A Syntax-Semantics/Pragmatics Interface Approach

This talk will begin with a brief introduction of the studies on events and telicity in philosophy of language and linguistics (cf. Vendler 1957; Davidson 1967; Parsons 1990; Rothstein 2008). We will then present our hypothesis on the classification events and the nature of telicity. Based on the revised version of the Exo-Skeletal (XS) Model (Borer 2005 a,b, 2013) in the Chomskyan tradition, which provides the specific mechanism for the mapping of events onto syntax, we propose that at the grammatical level, there are only two types of events, i.e. dynamic and stative events, while activity, accomplishment and achievement events are sub-types of dynamic events which are not determined by syntactic structure but lexical information plus pragmatic information. Telicity, traditionally taken as a property of lexical information, is assumed to be the result of syntactic composition. We argue that lexical information and contextual (pragmatic) information also play a role in the determination of telicity because the interpretation returned by syntactic computation should be compatible with human’s general conceptual knowledge, a specific illustration of the Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) interface requirement articulated in Minimalism (Chomsky 2000, 2013).

 

Although drawing upon many analytical techniques from generative (Chomskyan) linguistics, this talk is aimed at a general audience with interest in event semantics and syntax, and thus does not require prior knowledge on specific theoretical knowledge in generative syntax (We will take every effort to explain the terminologies involved).

动词、事件与终结性

----- 基于句法—语义/语用界面的研究

        本次报告首先扼要介绍语言学哲学与语言学研究中有关动词分类与终结性的相关概念(cf. Vendler 1957; Davidson 1967; Parsons 1990; Rothstein 2008)。随后将聚焦于本次报告的主要研究假设。本研究的理论框架是乔姆斯基语言学理论照应下的外框架模式（XS Model）（Borer 2005 a,b, 2013）；我们将修正该模式，为事件结构的句法映射提供统一的理论框架。本研究指出，在语法层面只有两类事件，即动态事件与状态事件；以往研究中的活动、完成与达成事件都属于动态事件，由词汇信息与语境信息决定。尽管传统研究将终结性归属于动词的词汇属性，本研究认为终极性本质上属于语法层面，是句法运算合成的结果。词汇信息与语境（语用）信息之所以也影响终结性解读，是因为句法运算获得的解读必须与人类普遍的概念知识相兼容，而这也为“最简方案”  （(Chomsky 2000, 2013)）中的概念-意向界面要求提供了一个具体的实例。

 

        本报告面向所有对事件语义学和句法学感兴趣的听众。因此，虽然本研究的分析工具主要来自于生成语言学理论，但听众不需要具备专业的生成语言学知识 （我们将努力在报告中把相关术语解释清楚）。

主讲人简介：

 

胡旭辉，助理教授、研究员（北京大学外国语学院，外国语言学与应用语言学研究所）。南京大学英语语言文学博士（2010）；英国剑桥大学理论语言学博士（2015）。研究方向：句法理论、语用学、历史与对比句法、句法-音系界面研究、形态学等。

 

欢迎老师和同学们参加！

北京大学 语言?逻辑?认知?计算 跨学科论坛

发布时间：2015-05-06 23:38:26