Events, States and Times: An essay on narrative discourse in English

ISBN-10: 3110485915
ISBN-13: 9783110485912
Category: Language Arts & Disciplines
Language: English
Published: 2016-11-07
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Author: Daniel Altshuler

Description

This monograph investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse in two parts. The theme of the first part is narrative progression. It begins with a case study of the adverb ‘now’ and its interaction with the meaning of tense. The case study motivates an ontological distinction between events, states and times and proposes that ‘now’ seeks a prominent state that holds throughout the time described by the tense. Building on prior research, prominence is shown to be influenced by principles of discourse coherence and two coherence principles, NARRATION and RESULT, are given a formally explicit characterization. The key innovation is a new method for testing the definitional adequacy of NARRATION and RESULT, namely by an abductive argument. This contribution opens a new way of thinking about how eventive and stative descriptions contribute to the perceived narrative progression in a discourse. The theme of the second part of the monograph is the semantics and pragmatics of tense. A key innovation is that the present and past tenses are treated as scalar alternatives, a view that is motivated by adopting a particular hypothesis concerning stative predication. The proposed analysis accounts for tense in both matrix clauses and in complements of propositional attitudes, where the notorious double access reading arises. This reading is explored as part of a corpus study that provides a glimpse of how tense semantics interacts with Gricean principles and at-issueness. Several cross-linguistic predictions of the analysis are considered, including their consequences for the Sequence of Tense phenomenon and the Upper Limit Constraint. Finally, a hypothesis is provided about how tense meanings compose with temporal adverbs and verb phrases. Two influential analysis of viewpoint aspect are then compared in light of the hypothesis. The monograph is directed at graduate students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics and philosophy of language. The analysis of narrative discourse that is developed in the monograph synthesizes and builds on prior collaborative research with Corien Bary, Valentine Hacquard, Thomas Roberts, Roger Schwarzschild, Una Stojnić, Károly Varasdi and Aaron White. Daniel Altshuler is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College and an Adjunct Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Get the book

Similar books

Verbs: Aspect and Causal Structure
By William Croft
A fourth type of phasal analysis is offered by Timberlake (1985). Timberlake assumes an interval temporal semantics like Woisetschlaeger, and focuses on ...
Linguistic Semantics
By William Frawley
In some languages, this elemental opposition surfaces directly, asin the Austronesian (Chamorro: Chung and Timberlake 1985; Bikol: Givón 1984) and certain ...
Communication Law
By Dominic G Caristi, William R Davie, Michael Cavanaugh
Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were performing during the halftime show when a “wardrobe malfunction” exposed for a fraction of a second the singer's ...
Communication Law: Practical Applications in the Digital Age
By William R Davie, Dom Caristi
Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were performing during the halftime show when a “wardrobe malfunction” exposed for a fraction of a second the singer's ...
The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World
By Joan Bybee, Revere Perkins, William Pagliuca
... 70, 85,171,231 Thomson, Greg, xix Thomson, R. W, 231, 233 Timberlake, Alan, ... J. M., 225, 235 van Putte, E., 286, 294 Vermant, S., 61,62 Vincent, N., ...
The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English
By Clive Upton, William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.
... 'timbol, –Z timber BR 'timble(r), -oz, -(e)rin, -od AM 'timblor, -orz, -(e)rin, ... -s Timberlake BR 'timboleik AM 'timbor,eik timberland BR 'timbaland, ...
Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Communication
By William B. Gudykunst
... 237 St. George , R. , 38 Stilling , E. , 251 Stonequist , E. , 247 Stopka ... R. , 149 Tidwell , R. , 227 , 230 Timberlake , M. F. , 266 Ting - Toomey ...
The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers
By Laura Oliver, M.F.A.
... line on Deck D. A baby squeals in the background cacophony ofthe airport. ... spirit in terms of matter, matter in terms ofspirit,” Robert Frost said.
Maintaining Long-Distance and Cross-Residential Relationships
By Laura Stafford
... 30, 31, 32, 34 Durand, D., 49 Dwyer, J. W., 78 E Egan, J., 93 Eisenberg, ... 102 Floyd, K., 85, 89, 91 Forsyth, C. J., 41, 42, 48, 5.1 Frost-Knappman, ...
Emergent Literacy: Lessons for Success
By Sonia Q. Cabell, Laura M. Justice, Joan Kaderavek
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 4, 331–342. Freedman, D. (2007). Scribble. New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers. Frost, J. (2001).