The Time Window of Language: The Interaction between Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Knowledge in the Temporal Interpretation of German and English Texts 9783110919523, 9783110182132

Table of contents :
Introduction
Acknowledgements
I. Temporality in Language: From Lexical Meaning to Text
Interpretation
1. The Association and Dissociation of Semantic Meaning and (Con)Textual Interpretation
2. The Ambiguity of Temporal Information in Texts
II. Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis
1. The Origins of Temporal Structure
1.1 General Remarks on Time and Temporal Structure
1.2 Natural Situations
1.3 The Pragmatic View: Natural Situations as Ontological Commitments
2. Temporal Interpretation in Interval Semantics
2.1 Evaluation Relative to Intervals of Time
2.2 Some Conclusions from Interval Semantics, Concerning Temporal Interpretation and the Sequencing of Situations
3. Objections to Interval-Based Theories
3.1 Natural Situations as Contexts: From Natural Situations to Possible Propositions
3.2 Natural Situations as Truth-makers: From Propositions to Possible Referents
4. Establishing Times
4.1 Indeterminate Structures in the Domain of Physical Objects: a Parallelism
4.2 Consequences for the Informativeness of Sortal Concepts
4.3 Establishing Features
4.4 The Underspecification of Verbal Semantics
5. Summary and Conclusions: Establishing Features, Temporal Relations, and Temporal Sequencing
III. A Methodological Framework Combining Formal Semantics and Formal Knowledge Representation
1. Introduction
2. Two-Level Semantics
3. Knowledge Representation and Natural Language Semantics
4. The Five-Level Approach: a Unified Framework for the Representation of Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Knowledge
4.1 The Five-Level Approach to Knowledge Representation
4.2 A Five-Level Representation of Temporal Interpretation
5. Extemalism – Internalism, Pragmatism – Realism: Some Remarks On the Role of Ontology
IV. Ontological and Epistemological Conditions on Temporal Reference
1. Epistemological Presumptions
1.1 Epistemology vs. Ontology
1.2 Partiality
1.3 Heuristics
2. A Formal Ontology of Time and Temporal Structure
2.1 The Ontologically Basic Assumptions of GOL
2.2 Mereology
2.3 Chronology
3. Ontological and Epistemological Extensions
3.1 Partial Structures, Representative Partial Structures, and Establishing Parts and Times
3.2 Chronological Relations Applying to Partial Structures and Their Elements
4. Partial Temporal Relations: Reasoning with Partial Structures
4.1 Approaches to Temporal Reasoning With Incomplete Knowledge
4.2 Translating Boundedness and Sequence of Partial Structures into Partial Interval Relations
4.3 Definitions and Relation Hierarchies for Partial Temporal Relations
5. Conclusions
V. Information about Establishing Times in Grammar: a Fragment of German Verbal Semantics
1. Establishing Features in Grammar: Formal Prerequisites
1.1 Syntax, Scope, and Semantic Composition of Aspectuality
1.2 Structured Eventive Predications: Which Part of a Sentence Meaning Encodes Establishing Features?
1.3 Decomposition
1.4 Two Alternative Strategies
2. Aspectual Composition (I): Direct Predicate Modifications (‚Attributive Strategy‘)
2.1 The Systematic Problem to Access Predicative Information Compositionally
2.2 The Aspectual Quality Predicate Q
3. Aspectual Composition (II): Multiple Layers of Eventive Predications (‚Predicative Strategy‘)
3.1 The Problem With Multiple Modifications
3.2 Multiple Layers of Eventive Predications
3.3 Unique Eventives, Sentence Mood, and Some Aspects of Object Topicalization
3.4 An Interpretation of Partial Superposition
3.5 Semantic Economy Contra Conceptual Adequacy: Weighing Up Both Strategies
4. Domains of Aspectual Composition
4.1 Aspectual Composition above VP (I): Temporal Modification
4.2 Aspectual Composition above VP (II): Sentence Negation
4.3 Aspectual Composition below VP: Inner Aspectuality and the Telicity/Atelicity Dichotomy
4.4 Aspectual Composition below V°: Productive Derivations of Lexical Adjustments
5. Preliminary Conclusions
VI. Tense, Discourse Structure, and the Sequencing of Eventives
1. A Dynamic Interpretation of Tense
1.1 The Anaphoric Character of Tense
1.2 Reference Times and Chains of Reference Times
1.3 Some Conclusions from Partee's Account
2. A Dynamic-Semantic Account of the German Tense System
2.1 The Dynamic and Compositional Approach of Dynamic Montague Grammar
2.2 Time and Sequence: The Two-Part Anaphora of Tense
3. Further Anaphoric Temporal Expressions: Adverbs and Conjunctions
4. Discourse Relations, the Parameter S, and the Reconstruction of Temporal Sequences
5. A Sample Text
VII. Conclusion
Appendix to chapter VI: Step-by-Step Composition of the Bäuerlein Text
References
Text Sources
Index of Figures
Index of Symbols and Abbreviations
Word Index

Citation preview

Martin Trautwein The Time Window of Language

Language, Context, and Cognition Edited by Anita Steube

Volume 2

W DE G Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Martin Trautwein

The Time Window of Language The Interaction between Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Knowledge in the Temporal Interpretation of German and English Texts

w G DE

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

® Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the A N S I to ensure permanence a n d durability.

Library

of Congress Cataloging-m-Publication

Data

Trautwein, Martin, 1970— The time window of language : the interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge in the temporal interpretation of G e r m a n a n d English texts / by Martin Trautwein, p. cm. - (Language, context, a n d cognition ; 2) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 3-11-018213-0 (alk. paper) 1. G r a m m a r , C o m p a r a t i v e a n d general - Temporal constructions. 2. Semantics. 3. Discourse analysis. 4. G r a m mar, Comparative a n d general - Aspect. I. Title. II. Series. P294.5.T73 2005 40Γ.43—dc22 2005001081

ISBN-13: 978-3-11-018213-2 ISBN-10: 3-11-018213-0 Bibliographic

information

published

by Die Deutsche

Bibliothek

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic d a t a is available in the Internet at < h t t p : / / d n b . d d b . d e > .

© Copyright 2005 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. K G , D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any f o r m or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage a n d retrieval system, without permission in writing f r o m the publisher. Printed in G e r m a n y Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin Printing and binding: H u b e r t & Co., Göttingen

For my parents, A. and C. Trautwein

Contents

Introduction Acknowledgements

XV 1

I.

Temporality in Language: F r o m Lexical Meaning to Text Interpretation

1.

The Association and Dissociation of Semantic Meaning and (Con)Textual Interpretation

1

2.

The Ambiguity of Temporal Information in Texts

6

II.

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

1.

The Origins of Temporal Structure

19

1.1 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.3

General Remarks on Time and Temporal Structure Natural Situations The Ontological Basis of Natural Situations Unity and Identity Dimensionality, Uniqueness, and Types of Situations The Pragmatic View: Natural Situations as Ontological Commitments

19 22 24 24 26

2.

Temporal Interpretation in Interval Semantics

30

2.1 2.2

Evaluation Relative to Intervals of Time Some Conclusions from Interval Semantics, Concerning Temporal Interpretation and the Sequencing of Situations

30

28

33

VIII

Contents

3.

Objections to Interval-Based Theories

3.1

3.2.3

Natural Situations as Contexts: From Natural Situations to Possible Propositions The Grammatical Manifestation of Aspectuality The Ontological Counterparts of Aspectual Classes The Interaction of Actual Structure and Conceptual Perspective: the Ontological and Epistemological Origins of Aspectuality Natural Situations as Truth-makers: From Propositions to Possible Referents The Global Ambiguity of Duration: Do Duratives Endure? Walking the Path of Truth: The Double Asymmetry of Accomplishments Relating Situations: Temporal Comparison

4.

Establishing Times

4.1

Indeterminate Structures in the Domain of Physical Objects: a Parallelism The Data Talmy's Theory of the Windowing of Attention Consequences for the Informativeness of Sortal Concepts Establishing Times: Language-Generated Windowing Effects on Natural Situations Entities by Accident: the Ontological Status of e-Times Are e-Times Truth-Makers and/or Referents? Establishing Features Essential Characteristics of Establishing Times Stretches and Bits: Morphological Properties of Partial Structures The Underspecification of Verbal Semantics Markedness and Precisification Establishing Features in the Light of Markedness and Precisification

3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3

3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2

4.1.1 4.1.2 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.4 4.4.1 4.4.2

5.

Summary and Conclusions: Establishing Features, Temporal Relations, and Temporal Sequencing

34 35 35 38

42 47 50 53 60 63 64 64 67 71 74 78 80 81 81 84 86 88 92

94

Contents

IX

III.

A Methodological Framework Combining Formal Semantics and Formal Knowledge Representation

1.

Introduction

97

2.

Two-Level Semantics

99

3.

Knowledge Representation and Natural Language Semantics

101

The Five-Level Approach: a Unified Framework for the Representation of Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Knowledge

104

4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4 4.2.5

The Five-Level Approach to Knowledge Representation A Five-Level Representation of Temporal Interpretation The Logical Level The Ontological Level The Conceptual Level The Epistemological Level The Linguistic Level

104 106 107 107 108 108 109

5.

Externalism - Internalism, Pragmatism - Realism: Some Remarks On the Role of Ontology

109

4.

IV.

Ontological and Epistemological Conditions on Temporal Reference

1.

Epistemological Presumptions

115

1.1 1.2 1.3

Epistemology vs. Ontology Partiality Heuristics

115 116 119

2.

A Formal Ontology of Time and Temporal Structure

123

2.1 2.1.1

The Ontologically Basic Assumptions of GOL Types of Entities in GOL

124 125

X

Contents

2.1.2 2.2 2.3

Basic Relations Mereology Chronology

126 128 129

3.

Ontological and Epistemological Extensions

134

3.1

Partial Structures, Representative Partial Structures, and Establishing Parts and Times 3.1.1 Partial Structures 3.1.2 Representative Partial Structures 3.1.3 Establishing Parts and Times 3.2 Chronological Relations Applying to Partial Structures and Their Elements 3.2.1 Sequence 3.2.2 Boundedness 3.2.2.1 Objections Against the Notion of Atoms and the Open-Closed Distinction 3.2.2.2 A Definition of Boundedness Based On Mereochronology 3.2.2.3 What It Means To Not Be Bounded 4. 4.1 4.1.1 4.1.2 4.2 4.3

5.

Partial Temporal Relations: Reasoning with Partial Structures Approaches to Temporal Reasoning With Incomplete Knowledge Convex Relations Conceptual Neighborhood Translating Boundedness and Sequence of Partial Structures into Partial Interval Relations Definitions and Relation Hierarchies for Partial Temporal Relations Conclusions

134 134 140 141 142 142 143 143 146 147

149 149 149 150 152 156 160

Contents

V.

XI

Information about Establishing Times in Grammar: a Fragment of German Verbal Semantics

161

1.

Establishing Features in Grammar: Formal Prerequisites

163

1.1 1.2

Syntax, Scope, and Semantic Composition of Aspectuality Structured Eventive Predications: Which Part of a Sentence Meaning Encodes Establishing Features? Decomposition Two Alternative Strategies

163

1.3 1.4

165 168 169

2.

Aspectual Composition (I): Direct Predicate Modifications (Attributive Strategy') 172

2.1

The Systematic Problem to Access Predicative Information Compositionally The Aspectual Quality Predicate Q Sentence Mood and Aspects of Object Topicalization The Constants become, happen, unmark, and the Parameter d i ^ u Conceptual Interpretations for the Aspectual Triggers

2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3

Aspectual Composition (II): Multiple Layers of Eventive Predications ('Predicative Strategy')

3.5.1 3.5.2

The Problem With Multiple Modifications Multiple Layers of Eventive Predications Unique Eventives, Sentence Mood, and Some Aspects of Object Topicalization An Interpretation of Partial Superposition Semantic Economy Contra Conceptual Adequacy: Weighing Up Both Strategies Pros and Cons of the 'Mapping Strategy' Pros and Cons of the'Predicative Strategy'

4.

Domains of Aspectual Composition

4.1

Aspectual Composition above VP (I): Temporal Modification Do Modifiers Carry Aspectual Information in their Own Right?

3.4 3.5

4.1.1

172 173 176 179 183

185 185 189 192 194 196 196 199 201 202 202

XII

Contents

4.1.2

Structural Aspects of Temporal Modifications: Syntactic and Semantic Presumptions Composing Simple and Multiple 4.1.3 Temporal Modifications 4.1.4 Restrictions on Aspectual Selection 4.2 Aspectual Composition above VP (II): Sentence Negation 4.2.1 Sentence Negation as an Aspectual Marker 4.2.2 The Structural Characteristics of Sentence Negation Sentence Negation and Temporal Modification 4.2.3 Aspectual Composition below VP: Inner Aspectuality 4.3 and the Telicity/Atelicity Dichotomy 4.3.1 Krifka's Notion of Incrementality 4.3.2 Transferring the Modes of Reference 4.3.3 ma/ag and grain: A Fragment of German DP Semantics 4.3.4 The Transfer of e-Features 4.4 Aspectual Composition below V°: Productive Derivations of Lexical Adjustments Detransitivation 4.4.1 4.4.2 Particle Verbs Secondary Predications 4.4.3 4.4.3.1 Proc-acco Verbs 4.4.3.2 Small Clauses

206 207 211 215 216 222 227 230 232 235 237 247 250 251 253 254 254 258 263

5.

Preliminary Conclusions

VI.

Tense, Discourse Structure, and the Sequencing of Eventives

1.

A Dynamic Interpretation of Tense

265

1.1 1.2 1.3

The Anaphoric Character of Tense Reference Times and Chains of Reference Times Some Conclusions from Partee's Account

265 267 269

Contents

2.

A Dynamic-Semantic Account of the German Tense System

The Dynamic and Compositional Approach of Dynamic Montague Grammar 2.2 Time and Sequence: The Two-Part Anaphora of Tense 2.2.1 The Positional and the Sequential Part of the Temporal Information of Tense 2.2.2 Conclusions and Further Assumptions on the German Tense System 2.2.2.1 Telic Verbs and the German Perfect 2.2.2.2 e-Times and the Extended Now 2.2.3 The Representation of the German Perfect, and Its Applications

XIII

270

2.1

3.

270 276 276 282 283 288 290

Further Anaphoric Temporal Expressions: Adverbs and Conjunctions

293

Discourse Relations, the Parameter

corning

home

eating the

[-»• being sound

canary asleep

when Figure 13: The conjunction als 'when' parallels situations of differing aspectual classes

But which particular stages of these situations are set into relation? When the conjunction makes its temporal cut through the scenario, Hans' coming home obviously is at the culmination stage and thus at the transition to the resulting state of Hans' being at home; the phone's ringing is at any or other arbitrary stage; the cat's devouring the bird is still in the preparatory stage and its natural result is not yet achieved; and Hannah's sleeping is at any or other arbitrary stage. It is conceivable that some stages other then these particular ones are paralleled by a temporal relation. Nonetheless, differing readings of sentence (51) are nearly impossible. Situations being often only partially related by natural-language semantics yields two problems for interval-based approaches. Reducing temporal interpretation to a homomorphism from situations to times cannot explain why individual stages of a situation are marked out for acting preferably as relata of temporal relations. The decomposition of interval-shaped situation courses into subsituations alone does not give a satisfying explanation for this preference. The second problem relates to those parts of a situation that are not included by the temporal relation. We know nothing more about sentence (51) than that one single outstanding stage of each situation is parallel in time to the relevant stages of the other situations. We still can say nothing about the temporal relations holding for the remaining stages. We do even not know (I still argue from the perspective of language comprehension) how long the situations persisted in time. We cannot give exact positions for their starting and ending points. If temporal interpretation assigned intervals to situations, however, determinate temporal relations would be set together with definite temporal boundaries. For these reasons, a further objection has to be made against interval semantics. To know that a natural situation has an initial and a final boundary is not tantamount to knowing the exact dates of these boundaries. The question is, how can

Establishing Times

63

we reconstruct intervals, their boundaries, or their relations, if the information of a text does not enable us to date situations and their boundaries. It turns out that all we know about temporal structure from a text are sequential relations between the spatiotemporal entities. The sequential relations, furthermore, do not refer to the whole course of situations but only to temporal parts of situations.

4

Establishing Times

Using natural language, we are able to refer to the world without being forced to refer to the sum of its properties. The sortal information denoted by lexemes of the open class and by their projections is highly abstract and selective. On the one hand, this is the reason that this structure does not dictate which qualitative aspects a concrete grammaticalization has to embrace. Nevertheless, the manifold structure of reality only marks out the frame within which we may talk about the world. On the other hand, the underspecification of sortal descriptions causes the indeterminacy, ambiguity, and vagueness of text information. The characteristics of sortal information, however, lead to a rather peculiar consequence: Sortal descriptions identify entities of the world (physical objects and situations). They identify these entities as wholes, that is as entities which can be isolated, segmented, and classified. What natural language predicates on the world, however, does not need to hold for these entities as wholes but possibly only for some of their parts. As far as natural situations and their linguistic functions of making sentences true are concerned, this seems to be a contradiction. Propositions identify situations and predicate on situations at the same time. This problem arises as long as we compare truth-making situations to the aspectuality of their linguistic descriptions. Therefore it might be helpful to look for an analogy in the domain of physical objects, since the carrier of sortal information (head nouns and their projections) and the carrier of predication on objects (the core predicate provided by the verb) do not coincide. The next section demonstrates how the 'total' reference of descriptions of objects may combine with the 'partial' reference of predications on these objects. These cases indeed parallel the effects found for situations.

64

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

4.1

Indeterminate Structures in the Domain of Physical Objects: a Parallelism 4.1.1

The Data

It is well-known that mass nouns and bare plurals do not denote information about quantities. (59) (60)

Gold is lying on the table. There were large trees in the garden.

Masses and groups of individuals have no intrinsic quantity, that is there is no criterion in the world itself that predetermines that masses occur in certain amounts or that plurals occur in particular numbers. Nevertheless, both kinds always appear in the real world only as limited amounts and numbers. Sortal concepts underlying the lexical semantics of nouns do not represent any of these limits. In sentences (59) and (60), we can consequently only estimate the quantities. There is a further kind of vagueness which does not depend on indefinite or definite determination and may occur even with unique entities: (61) (62)

Tom schwimmt über den Fluss. 'Tom swam the river.' Thelma steht an der Straße. 'Thelma is standing by the street.'

For the situations described by (61) and (62), A and C in the scenarios in Figure 14 are plausible interpretations, while Β and D are not.

Β A

•

C Figure 14: Scenarios that make the statements in (61) and (62) true

Both activities refer to the boundaries of the respective physical objects. They presuppose that the boundaries are definitely given within the

Establishing Times

65

scenario. We know that physical objects normally have finite and therefore limited extents in space. As bounding regions may be fuzzy, even vagueness does not prevent us in everyday life to reckon with the fact that even rivers and streets start and end somewhere. Although this knowledge justifies interpretations as Β and D, both are unusual interpretations with respect to sentences (61) and (62). My hypothesis is: Parts of physical objects that exceed the range of the fields of human perception are not represented in the corresponding sortal concepts. As a consequence, the properties of all those parts of a large physical object which belong to the unspecified sections (as, for instance, bounding regions) are only inferred if the explicit linguistic information or the non-linguistic context forces us to do so. It appears necessary to exclude the possibility that such restrictions are only an effect of statistical frequency. Some spatial configurations may occur much more frequently than others. The number of central sections of streets and rivers, for example, is higher than the number of their terminal sections, as the extent of their boundaries differs considerably lengthways and widthways. So let us look at another kind of spatial reference that may support my hypothesis: (63)

77;e church is south of Fleet Street.

Even if we admit that descriptive expressions like south of or left of allow a certain tolerance or vagueness, it is not the case that the church is south of every part of the street. It is remarkable that the referential act, nonetheless, succeeds. So what do we know, when we know that sentence (63) is true? We just know that the relation holds for at least one section (or a set of proximate sections) of the street. Surely, one could argue that such a linear structure divides the space into a southern hemisphere and a northern hemisphere. Then south of would simply mean within the southern hemisphere. But this is only a plausible explanation if we take an absolute or geographic view. Using relative descriptions, similar to the one in (64), clarifies the idea that our answer to the question of which parts of a large object actually come under a certain predication depends crucially on our perspective. (64)

The mountain is north of the river.

66

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

ΚS Figure 15: A scenario for (64). The relation asserted holds only for a short section of the river

Uttered in a situation at S, the sentence is acceptable, although it does not make any sense from the geographic perspective. It is conspicuous that the spatial frame of the situation of discourse determines both the spatial relation and the section of the river to which it refers. It seems that semantics of spatial expressions does not divide the world into geographic areas but divides it into those areas which are relevant for the predication and those which are not. In fact, the predicative descriptions in the utterances (61) to (64) violate the principle of homogeneous reference. Löbner (1990) formulates this principle in a General Presupposition of Homogeneity: 'The argument of a predication is undivided with respect to the critical property'.19 Predications should accordingly hold holistically - or undividedly - with respect to the objects involved. Utterances that do not satisfy this requirement are normally unacceptable. (65) (66)

*A zebra is white. * Cars are made ofsteel.

When we explain the constraint represented by the General Presupposition of Homogeneity as a universal quantification over parts of an object, the violations in (66) can be made explicit.

19

Allgemeine Homogenitätspräsupposition: "Das Argument einer Prädikation ist in bezug auf die kritische Eigenschaft ungeteilt." Löbner (1990: p. 25)

Establishing Times

(67) (68)

67

*All parts of a zebra are white. *All components of cars are made ofsteel.

Predications on objects that stretch widely in space produce acceptable utterances, even though they do not keep the homogeneity condition. The examples (61) to (64) show clearly that predications do not refer to all parts of these large objects. If predications quantify universally over the parts of an object, it is a cogent assumption that the domain of this quantification is restricted by the domain of discourse. Referring to large physical objects, we only take the salient parts into account. These phenomena also closely relate to what Löbner (1985) claims for definite descriptions: Definite reference always involves a definite domain of possible referents. The range of this domain is dependent on the frame of discourse and on what is relevant within this frame. Besides objects, as rivers or streets, which extend only in one direction, we find comparable restrictions on the reference to unpredictably large surfaces and volumes: (69) (70) (71)

After the factory blew up, a thin film ofsugar covered the land. 27le tuna's blood colored the sea water red. It's raining.

Also in sentences (69) to (71), it is reasonable that only parts of the concrete objects and regions are involved in the situations. The spatial reference points taken by the participants of discourse constitute the center of the quantification domain. However, we can only estimate the spatial extent of the parts involved, as the range of the quantification domain depends on what individual discourse participants accept.

4.1.2 Talmy's Theory on the Windowing Effects of Attention Speaking about 'relevance', 'domain of discourse', 'perspective' etc. raises some further questions: If only parts of a physical object are involved in a situation, what is it then that marks these parts for being selected? Do these parts bear some striking characteristics? Or does the spatial relation demarcate which section of an object is relevant? A comprehensive theory of the selectivity of linguistic encoding is proposed by Talmy (1996). He develops a theory of how language imposes its perspective on the world, which he calls the windowing of attention. Talmy (1996: p. 236) defines it as follows:

68

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis "Linguistic forms can direct the distribution of one's attention over a referent scene in a certain type of pattern, the placement of one or more windows of greatest attention over the scene, in a process that can be termed the windowing of attention. In this process, one or more portions of a referent scene [...] will be placed in the foreground of attention while the remainder of the scene is backgrounded. The most fundamental formal linguistic device that mediates this cognitive process is - straightforwardly - the inclusion in a sentence of explicit material referring to the portion or portions of the total scene that are to be foregrounded, and the omission of material that would refer to the remainder of the scene intended for backgrounding."

In accordance with this definition, we can regard the reference to parts of natural objects as an effect of linguistic windowing: The relevant parts - the banks that breadthways demarcate a river, for instance - are placed in the foreground whereas the irrelevant sections - the spring and the mouth of a river - are disregarded. I want to emphasize, however, that Talmy himself intends his conceptions for a much broader area of application. What he has in mind is much more comparable to the information gaps I mentioned in the introduction. Expanding his conception to our problem, however, enables us to say that also just parts of objects can be foregrounded while the remaining parts of the objects stay in the background of attention. The explicit material of a sentence, correspondingly, tells us something about the parts in our focus but does not describe the parts outside our focus. To prove this, we simply have to turn round Talmy's definition: There is evidence for a windowing effect, for predications like the one in (64) undoubtedly disregard the language-independent unity and coherence of natural physical objects. We may conclude that the semantic content of sortal nouns does not provide any specific information about marginal or untypical components of a physical object, since this information would otherwise have to be erased by the verbal predicate. 20 This, however, still leaves us with the question of what produces this effect. Smith (1999a) elaborates Talmy's approach to a theory of truth and reference. The theory rests furthermore on his distinction between bona fide (or natural) boundaries and fiat boundaries. The domain of object is subdivided accordingly into bona fide, fiat, and mixed objects (Smith 2001). Bona fide objects have inherent boundaries, i.e. components that mark a qualitative heterogeneity in the spatiotemporal continuum. These natural boundaries exist independently of any perceptive or 20

At least in a strictly compositional approach to semantics, the erasure, deletion, or overwriting of information is an undesirable assumption.

Establishing Times

69

intentional processes. Bona fide objects thus comprise all entities in space and time that are comprehended as self-contained, like trees, persons, eating events, et cetera. Fiat boundaries, in contrast, "exist only in virtue of the different sorts of demarcations effected cognitively by human beings" (Smith 2001: p. 5). Smith further observes that the windowing of attention may create fiat objects by dividing situations into foreground and background. He names the portion of reality which natural language demarcates by establishing a fiat boundary around it the judgment field. The judgment field - sometimes also called the Sachverhalt or state of affairs - exists independently of the judgment. Only the act of judging makes this entity distinguishable from the continuum of spatial structures. We can learn from Smith's approach that the way language generates fiat boundaries depends on the specific viewpoint of an utterance. Different propositions referring to one and the same situation yield dissimilar windowing effects and thus create different fiat objects. It is a twisted issue, however, whether the language-generated fiat objects, in their own right, constitute the referents of discourse or if they are just parts of the objects that we refer to. To put it more concrete: Do sortal nominal descriptions refer to regular, language-independent objects or may they also refer just to language-generated fiat parts of natural objects? There is some linguistic evidence that it is their 'pole of identity'21 that enables objects to act as referents rather than the fact that they are collections of diverse properties. We are able to window onto a language-independent object in different ways, and each way of windowing creates a particular utterance. Despite this ability, however, the identity of the object we talk about remains untouched. Our judgment may trim an object in view of finding an ideal and minimal unit that makes our sentence true. Such units are always fiat objects that owe their possibility of being identified to a particular judgment. They 21

Husserl (1950) stresses that the identity of an object (Gegenstand) throughout our changing conciousness of the object is an achievement of intentionality (i.e. of the so-called Synthesis): "So gehört zu jedem Bewußtsein als Bewußtsein von etwas die Wesenseigenheit, [...] überhaupt in immer neue Bewußtseinsweisen übergehen zu können als Bewußtsein von demselben Gegenstand, der in der Einheit der Synthesis ihnen intentional einwohnt als identischer gegenständlicher Sinn [...]. Der Gegenstand ist sozusagen ein Identitätspol, stets mit einem vorgemeinten und zu verwirklichenden Sinn bewußt, in jedem Bewußtseinsmoment Index einer ihn sinngemäß zugehörigen noetischen Intentionalität, nach der gefragt, die expliziert werden kann" (Husserl 1950, p. 83).

70

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

cannot be re-identified - unless we re-use the same sentence. Therefore, any kind of coreference - that is two or more sentences referring to one and the same referent - should prove that regular referents gain their identity from criteria other than the linguistic ones. (72) presents a fortunate linguistic example. All sentences of the text refer to the same physical entity using a chain of cohesive expressions. Each sentence, however, takes its own perspective on the entity. Thus the text combines varying effects of windowing with a continuous coreference. (72)

i. ii. iii. iv.

[Potash Road]i is a scenic dirt road near Canyonlands National Park. Itι follows the Colorado river on the north side. Iti's named after a potash mining facility located in the area. The end of [the road]j climbs up the Schaefer switchbacks in Canyonlands N[ationai\ P[ark\ (Source: http://www.warnerbrother.com/outdoors/canyon/Potash.htm)

Sentences (i) to (iv) refer to one and the same scenic road while each sentence predicates on another section of this road. None of these sentences reactivates a spatial grid or partition already used by a preceding sentence. With the exception of the last sentence, none of these cognitive acts of sectioning is expressed explicitly. To which parts of the road we refer in sentences (i) to (iii) solely depends on the verbal predication and its perspective. Sentence (ii) does not suggest that the whole road follows the river on the north side. The mode of reference may even switch between a partial and a total comprehension of an entity. Sentences (i) and (iii) predicate qualities that apply to the whole of the road whereas sentences (ii) and (iv) focus only on parts of the road's spatial path. Dependent on the level of granularity which a sentence chooses, a verbal predication on large objects may cut out a fiat section of the referent but may also embrace the entire object spatially. The following contrastive pairs of sentences verify this: (73)

Thelma is standing by the street. The street was repaired last year.

(74)

After the factory blew up, a thin film of sugar covered the land. The land is owned by the sugar factory.

The switching between the different modes of reference demonstrate that discourse referents, normally, are entities which exist independently of any linguistic forms or acts. Each judgment encoded by a sentence demarcates this entity or a segment of this entity as a component of the truth-making situation. The coreferential connection, how-

Establishing Times

71

ever, can only succeed if the entity as a whole can be recognized as a self-contained object that has its unit independently of linguistic statements. By predicating on such an object, we can generate a fiat part of it which helps us to evaluate an assertion true. We can, in turn, only identify and re-identify this very part by referring to the whole object using a particular statement. Nevertheless, together with the fiat parts, we always also identify indirectly the natural, self-contained object that hosts the respective part. The 'coindentification' of the framing natural object guarantees that coreference succeeds. Thus the co-referential readings in (72) are triggered rather by the identity of the totality of the road than by those of its language-generated segments. Let me summarize: First, the variety of windowing effects on objects and their spatial paths are generated by different predications. Second, these effects create fiat parts of the objects which act as constituents of the truthmaking situation And third, the function of these objects as discourse referents remains untouched by changing situation frames. Fourth, the truth-making parts deputize for the respective whole object, for if we identify these parts we should also be able to identify the object. With respect to linguistic meaning, the above arguments signify a discrepancy between the referential and the truth-conditional properties of sentences. If sentence meanings express truth conditions for possible contexts, the facts they express must be evaluated with regard only to those parts of an object of reference that the semantic content of the sentences actually involves. Sortal nouns like street, river, land, sea water etc. do not lexicalize properties that motivate the unity of the corresponding referents, e.g. like shape or quantity, but determine the substantial constitution of a typical part. In contrast, when we use indefinite or definite descriptions complemented by these nouns, we refer to 'regular' physical objects. We know that these objects have a continuous texture, are bounded in space, and show coherence, unity, and identity. Nevertheless, we accept that the properties or processes expressed by the main (e.g. verbal) predication of a sentence does not need to apply to an object in its entirety.

4.2 Consequences for the Informativeness of Sortal Concepts Let us complete now our excursion into the world of physical objects and return to the phenomena in the domain of natural situations. What we learn from the windowing phenomena on physical objects is that the

72

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

concepts lexicalized in natural language are much less specific and detailed than objects are in reality. It will be useful to clarify which kind of concept underlies the semantic forms of lexical entries. Figure 16 roughly sketches the model of the language system which I presume in my argumentation.

Figure 16: A model of the language system. The illustration differentiates representations and activations (hexagons) on the one hand, and functions or rule-driven operations (ellipses) on the other hand

In the real world, we have to deal with concrete, spatiotemporal entities that occur as particulars. Our thoughts, our acts of uttering, and our acts of referring, too, can be seen as particular occurrences. The system of language mediates these entities, though it operates indirectly via abstraction and selection. Accordingly, the entire model of language can be construed from the perspective of the type-token distinction. 22 23

22

23

Pieter Seuren inspired me to apply the type-token distinction to a general model of the language system when he proposed a similar conception in his presentation "Why a grammar is not a random sentence generator but a mediating device between thoughts and surface structures", held on January 24 th , 2001 at the Graduate Center "Universalität und Diversität: Sprachliche Strukturen und Prozesse", University of Leipzig. Also cf. Seuren, Capretta, and Geuvers 2001 and the general model of language and communication in Figure 26, p. 98. In other theoretical contexts, one can only find the distinction between specific and generic concepts or, above all in the literature of cognitive psychology, the distinc(cont.)

Establishing Times

73

The entities of the physical reality (objects and situations) as well as concrete thoughts, utterances, and acts of reference belong to the sphere of tokens. From the perspective of linguistic function, objects and situations appear as reference-making or truth-making portions of the world. Thoughts can be comprehended as anything that may be an input for the grammatical system of formulation (and thus also captures what is meant by preverbal message, cf. Levelt 1989, Bierwisch and Schreuder 1992, Herweg and Maienborn 1992). By applying a set of linearization rules to the items of the lexical base, grammar translates between the levels of thoughts and utterances. The entire grammatical system inclusive of all grammatical categories and the mental lexicon belongs to the hemisphere of type knowledge. This implies, in turn, that the semantics of open-class expressions of natural language exclusively denotes sortal concepts. The term 'sortal', however, is used here in a broader sense. It covers sort predicates like house(x), sheep(x) etc. that identify objects, verb-argument structures such as run(x), eat(x, y) that identify situations, as well as properties carried by modifying items24. Sortal concepts are not mental one-to-one mappings of the world. Rather they transport identifying conditions. Following this presumption, the language model proposed here does not attempt to comprehend the representational - or 'material' - traits of concepts. Instead I would like to lay stress on the function that sortal concepts take in linguistic contexts. Sorts provide criteria for the identification of individuals. They are not simply more or less extensive collections of substances or properties. We need only a few conditions in order to identify a structure within the continuum, and these conditions are provided by sortal concepts. Sorts, however, are not able to identify individuals by themselves since the information they transport is too unspecific. But they reduce the set of possible referents drastically, such that suitable referents can be identified within the relevant context of utterance. The information about physical properties that sortal concepts bear is very economic. Sorts are able to abstract from all those qualities of an entity which are not essential to its membership to the respective class. This economy of sorts also implies two significant points with respect to the semantic realization of sorts: Of the structural properties that the entities of a certain sort may show in space and time, only a

24

tion between episodic and semantic knowledge. Both conceptions closely relate to the type-token dichotomy. In fact, the semantics of modifiers can be understood as restricting sortal properties.

74

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

few are part of the semantic content. Furthermore, the underspecification of sortal concepts with respect to all other, non-essential, properties determines the range of possible inferences which may operate on the semantic content. Hence the economy of information of sortal concepts also motivates the inference potential of semantic constituents. In all these respects, sortal concepts differ considerably from more complex forms of type concepts. Schemas generalize over the varied properties of the entities of a particular species. They represent stereotypes in the form of structured fields of typical features of an object kind. Frames are static stereotypical concepts of object kinds. Scenarios and scripts are more elaborate frames that show larger dynamic sections of the world. The scenario restaurant comprehends the objects and spatial relations that normally are found in those configurations to which we refer as restaurants. The script visit the restaurant then involves both the scenario restaurant and all actions and events that typically occur during such a situation.

4.2.1 Establishing Times: Language-Generated Windowing Effects on Natural Situations Differentiating type concepts into sorts and schemas enables us to phrase the question more concisely: What spatiotemporal properties of reality are represented by the sortal concepts underlying the linguistic descriptions of situations? Can we find criteria in reality that precondition how conceptualization selects these properties out of the spatiotemporal continuum? Such a precondition would be able to predict for a particular sortal concept which aspects of the world the concept will disregard. The analogy to large objects, masses and plurals suggests that the effectiveness of language-specific temporal filters, temporal perspectives, and temporal granularities signifies a special kind of windowing effect. This time, however, the window we have to deal with is both spatial and temporal. Temporal sections of situations, too, act as fields of judgment, in accordance with the definition by Smith (1999a). Sortal concepts representing large objects characterize just one or more typical parts of the spatial path of an object. Only these parts are involved into the judgment of an assertion. In a perfectly comparable way, sortal situation concepts describe only a typical temporal (and/or spatial) part of a natural situation. Activity verbs like laugh or run, for instance, do not provide information about temporal bounded-

Establishing Times

75

ness. They only denote one single, more or less central, stage of the situation course. We cannot decide, however, which temporal position the stage occupies within the situation course (in the sense that we cannot determine if the stage is rather an 'early' or a 'late' part of the situation). We do not even know anything about whether the stage includes the initial or final temporal boundary of the situation. These aspects of the situation, which are not focused by the spatiotemporal window, are neglected by the type concept. Achievements, to take another example, denote a stage which involves the final boundary of a truth-maker. However, they do not characterize the character of the development preparing the eventual outcome. Find only requires that an object comes into the perception or possession of a person. Nothing is said, however, whether this is the result of a concrete search or just an accidental find. The achievement verb reach denotes that an entity gets to such a location that a particular topological relation holds true. Again, nothing is told about the mode of motion (walking, driving etc.) that made this entity arrive at the location. The truth of the fact denoted by a sentence root and - in the case that no further expressions shift the aktionsart - the truth of the whole sentence holds in relation to just one stage and only relatively to this stage. Such a phase is called establishing time (or, for short, e-times). All situations are established in the text model via this stage. Indefinite masses, groups, or indefinitely large entities of the domain of physical objects are analogously represented by establishing parts (or e-parts). Declarative sentences containing temporal modifications, however, often assert the truth of a proposition for a definite interval-shaped period. Correspondingly, an e-time is minimal temporal extent in any possible context relative to which an assertion must hold true. If this minimal interpretation is expanded by the sentential context, the time of actual evaluation of the sentence might differ from the establishing time. In detail, temporal modifications may specify intervals of time or relations referring to interval-shaped situations (as time measurements). Otherwise, if no aspectually relevant expressions contribute to the aktionsart, the time of actual evaluation of a sentence coincides with the e-time of the sentence root. The situation time, finally, is the real duration of the natural situation itself. Temporal interpretations generally attempt to approximate the temporal extent of the situation time if possible. It starts out from the time of actual evaluation, which is provided by the linguistic material of a sentence, and supplements it using information from the textual or extra-linguistic context. In the ideal

76

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

case, the interpretation model of the reference situation resembles an interval-shaped time span. In turn, such interpretation models of natural situations - as elaborate as they might be - are the building blocks of temporal sequences of situations. Some phenomena occurring in the context of temporality, furthermore, are not directly tied to the structure of natural situations but depend on our perceptual, putative, or social dealings with time, such as perception, estimation, or experience of time, measurements of time, absolute scales of temporal measuring, prototypical durations of everyday actions and events etc. All these phenomena are black-boxes from the viewpoint of linguistics, for these times show no transparent inherent structure but just an opaque closure. These faculties demarcate interval-shaped times, nevertheless, that a language recipient can work into her model of a temporal sequence. All in all, temporal interpretation deals with three different kinds of truth-related times. Table 1 contrasts the semantic contribution and the grammatical domains of establishing times, times of actual evaluation, and situation times. Temporal information

Semantic format

Grammatical domain

Establishing time

Proposition

Sentence root (at least)

Time of actual evaluation

Extended proposition

Sentence

Situation time

Meaning of utterance

Text, context

Table 1: Three units of temporal interpretation, the format of their semantic encoding, and their grammatical domain

Figure 17 illustrates the model of a natural situation that makes the sample sentence in (75) true. It thereby demonstrates the interrelation of the three levels of temporal interpretation, (75)

Petra played the piano an Sunday, March 13"', 1996, from 3 to 6 p.m..

77

Establishing Times possible situation time: Petra played the piano on Sunday....

possible establishing time =play the piano time of speech = time of reference

actual evaluation time =for 3 hours

Figure 17: The different levels of temporality, exemplified for sentence (75)

As long as the context does not require any radical changes of the predefined aktionsart, the way of interpretation leads from the verbargument structure to the entire context, normally making the temporal information more and more precise. The interpretation of sentence (75) exactly obeys the general rule that is expected to apply here: an e-time is included by the corresponding evaluation time, and the evaluation time, in turn, is included by the corresponding situation time. According to increasing specificity, the levels of temporal interpretation reconstruct a chain of implications. T e m p o r a l interpretation evaluation time

establishing time

situation time

sortal description

natural situation

LANGUAGE

WORLD

Figure 18: The mutual implication of the diverse levels of temporal interpretation

25

It might seem peculiar that the possible situation time may exceed the actual evaluation time. Note, however, that each temporal modifier specifying a duration triggers a scalar implicature. It is just by virtue of the effectiveness of this implicature that a text producer suggests that she would not have chosen this particular time if she thereby suppressed some relevant information about the actual (longer) duration of the activity.

78

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

If we know the exact situation time, we can deduce where the time of actual evaluation is possibly located in this period. And having set a certain evaluation time for a sentence, we can infer furthermore where the establishing time (if it does not coincide with the evaluation time) is possibly positioned in the evaluation time.26 In contrast to the simple homomorphism which interval semantics is resting on, the direction of the implications indicates that there in fact is a homomorphism, but that this homomorphism maps the temporal extent of natural situations onto possible establishing times. As propositional descriptions denote the temporal properties of e-times, reasoning from such an e-time to the corresponding situations times is necessarily non-monotonic. The nonmonotonicity is one of the main characteristics of text interpretation as it points to the origins of ambiguity.

4.2.2 Entities by Accident: the Ontological Status of e-Times The conception of e-times and e-parts is tied to cognitive functions, such as identifying or categorizing. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that the entities of both kinds are parts of the world. They are not pure construction. We cannot reduce them to objects of subjective perception or of interpretations of the world. Nor are they abstractions produced by the form or the performance of natural language. In contrast, e-times and e-parts are the entities to which the functions of truth and reference directly relate.27 These entities, however, are not 'objects' or 'things' in the traditional sense. We could say that they bear no - or very few - inherent properties which could supply them a world-intrinsic criterion for unity and thus for identity. It seems rather that they are reified by accident, as, for instance, when a judgment refers to a particular but arbitrary constellation in space and time, or when a sortal description identifies an individual by describing just one of its typical parts. The two situations referred to in the sample sentences in (76) are, with all probability, not causally linked. 26

27

In fact, for any concrete sentence and any concrete situation time, we get a class of possible temporal sections which might constitute the evaluation time. And, analogously, any concrete evaluation time may include a whole class of temporal sections which could serve as e-times. Thus I take an externalist view on truth and reference.

Establishing Times

(76)

79

Oliver erreichte den Sportplatz. Judith spielte Tennis. Oliver reached the sports field. Judith playpreterite tennis.'

The temporal relation holding between them is accidental in some respect. Natural situations, thought of as particulars, have their own intrinsic structure. Their constituents - like actors, properties, times, locations, and relations - tie them together, make them coherent, and let us recognize them as wholes. In the same way, the situation that Oliver is part of has its own existence, independent of other situations. If one considers a larger context (the circumstances of Oliver's action, for example), one could also have referred to this situation as Oliver's walking or coming to the sports field, or even as his leaving or his heading for the sports field. It seems that it is in favor of temporal and spatial coherence that the descriptive part of the first sentence denotes an e-time which is a final stage of the situation. si

Figure 19: Establishing times and possible extents of the referents for sentences (76)

Only this final stage can be set into an immediate spatiotemporal relation to the second situation. The establishing time that the second sentence selects out of Judith's situation is predetermined by the reference time of the sentence: the combination of continuous tense with the narrative rhetorical relation predicts that, in the default case, the reference time of the first sentence precedes the reference time of the second. We can put the claim even more strongly: there is no other reason for a sentence to single out a particular e-time than the requirement that all successful sentences be parts of a coherent utterance. From one perspective, it seems that linguistic units describe situations by asserting that at least the e-times of the respective sorts exist. Reconstructing temporal sequences, we make use of a temporal grid. We simply fit the e-times into its cells. The granularity of the grid determines how closely or distantly two situations need to be located to one another such that we judge them either coincident or successive. From the opposite perspective, however, it seems that it is rather the temporal grid that determines that we have to partition the situations into relevant and

80

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

irrelevant parts. The granularity of the grid requires that only parts approximating a certain temporal extent can be compared in time at all. Therefore the referential focus of semantic meaning does not only identify truth-makers but even produces them.

4.2.3

Are e-Times Truth-Makers and/or Referents?

The question of whether e-times of situations are truth-makers is a challenging one. Actually, Smith (1999b) observes that all truth-makers are fiat objects. Disregarding any physical (bona fide) boundaries, the cognitive act of judging delimits a fiat segment of the world. An e-time is a collection of properties of a part of the world that is marked by a proposition as constituting a fact. Establishing times can be regarded as minimal truth-makers for a proposition, i.e. truth-makers which embrace only those parts of the world that are relevant for the truth of the proposition. This evokes the question whether the referents or - to choose a more concise term - the discourse referents of naturallanguage texts are distinct from the truth-makers of single propositions. I tend to answer in the affirmative. As we have seen in 4.1.2, referents of the domain of physical objects are language-independent individuals (although they may be bona fide or fiat objects). Each judgment projects a specific window onto the spatial path of an object. The identity of the referent, nonetheless, remains constant. Text semantics provides evidence that the temporal windowing on situations functions in a similar way. Just as in the description of Potash Road in example (72), a text can elaborate one and the same situation while the focus on this situation changes from sentence to sentence. Recall, for instance, example (12) in chapter I (which is reiterated here as (77)). (77)

Über dem Atlantik befand sich ein barometrisches Minimum; es wanderte ostwärts, einem über Rußland lagernden Maximum zu, und verriet noch nicht die Neigung, diesem nördlich auszuweichen. Die Isothermen und Isotheren taten ihre Schuldigkeit. Die Lufttemperatur stand in einem ordnungsgemäßen Verhältnis zur mittleren Jahrestemperatur, zur Temperatur des kältesten wie des wärmsten Monats und zur aperiodischen monatlichen Temperaturschwankung. Der Auf- und Untergang der Sonne, des Mondes, der Lichtwechsel des Mondes, der Venus, des Saturnringes und viele andere bedeutsame Erscheinungen entsprachen ihren Voraussagen in den astronomischen Jahrbüchern. Der Wasserdampf in der Luft hatte seine höchste Spannkraft, und die Feuchtigkeit der Luft war gering.

Establishing Times

81

Mit einem Wort, das das Tatsächliche recht gut bezeichnet, wenn es auch etwas altmodisch ist: Es war ein schöner Augusttag des Jahres 1913. (cf. Footnote 4, p. 13) The frame situation is the spatiotemporal sphere of weather conditions on a day in August 1913. Expressions like wanderte ostwärts, der Aufund Untergang der Sonne, or der Lichtwechsel des Mondes, however, single out some subordinate spheres which are spatiotemporal parts of the framing situation. Each sentence projects its window onto the situation frame. I conclude from this that establishing times are truthmakers in the original meaning of the term whereas natural situations are the referential anchors of propositions in space and time. In a broader sense, however, the existence of a natural situation does make a set of propositions true since the situation comprises all those e-times which are the minimal truth-makers for the propositions. Therefore I use truth-making situations to indicate this double function - as referential anchors and as truth-makers - of natural situations.

4.3 Establishing Features 4.3.1 Essential Characteristics of Establishing Times The objections made against interval semantics, the discussion of windowing effects, and the characterization of sortal descriptions already point out the manifold traits, functions, and uses establishing times have to satisfy. The following list enumerates the main characteristics of e-times and e-parts. All points more or less reflect some consequences drawn from the failure of interval-semantic theories. For the present, however, they are formulated as hypotheses that need to be verified in the coming sections. • Establishing times and establishing parts are realized by different grammatical domains. The analogy between their linguistic effects gives reason to suppose, nevertheless, that both spring from a joint principle that parallels truth and reference. E-times and e-parts are parts of those entities of the world which justify the reference of nominal expressions and, respectively, the truth of propositional expressions. • An e-time is a typical - or representative - part of a situation. Etimes are built from a certain material and show a certain texture. Their properties signify that they are characteristic parts and contrast them to

82

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

all other parts in the background of attention. Ε-times mirror what is essential to a natural situation and what is relevant in the situation of utterance. In a run situation, for instance, the motion of an actor is the focus of attention, while the questions of if she started out at her apartment or if she has put on her new track shoes are of no interest. • Establishing times carry morphological properties. Texts might tell us that an e-time is a tangential or non-tangential temporal part of a situation. Then we know if this area involves some temporal boundaries of the situation. Establishing times also carry chronological properties. Sentences, sentence constituents, and the text structure encode spatial and temporal relations between two or more e-times. Beyond this, an etime might carry the qualitative feature of telicity. Establishing parts, analogously, carry morphological and topological properties. They can also be non-tangential or tangential temporal parts of a referent. All these establishing features are nonetheless underspecified in many regards: uniting the properties of just one part of a particular, they do not reflect the entire spectrum of a particular's properties. • Establishing properties do not only identify a typical part of a particular but also serve to identify the particular itself. This is rather a rule of thumb, which is handled much less strictly if referents lack natural boundaries or if we talk about indefinite referents. Establishing properties identify rather a class of particulars than one unique referent. (Recall that e-parts are also used to represent groups of an indefinite number of particulars). Ε-times integrate all the qualities necessary to identify the temporal section of a situation which falls into the judgment field. To summarize: e-times may be static or dynamic, telic or atelic, bounded or non-bounded. Furthermore, they may be initial, central, or final stages of a natural situation. • The establishing properties is the minimal consensus that discourse participants share about the properties of a particular. Hence these properties constitute semantic content. When the context of a sortal expression does not provide any more information about a reference- or truth-maker, establishing properties function as the starting-point for spatial and temporal interpretations. • E-times establish truth-maker situations in the flow of narrative movement. Thereby they act as some kind of temporal anchor. In the default case, e-times and e-parts are the relata of relations expressed by the main predications of sentences. This is a consequence of the observation that these relations do not operate on the whole spatiotemporal extent of situations (notice, however, that e-times and e-parts may be

Establishing Times

83

congruent with the associated particulars). The properties and relations holding for e-times and e-parts are thus the initial premises of spatiotemporal reasoning. They allow us to anchor the model situations temporally in a model sequence of situations. Following information and further context add additional premises that facilitate a more precise specification of the relations. • Each semantic description of a particular e-time involves a specific aspectual type. The grammatical domain of the descriptions of e-times coincides with the grammatical domain of aspectuality (as for aspectuality, the default domain of descriptions of e-times is the sentence root). The establishing features expressed by the description motivate the preferences of verbs, verbal projections, and sentences for particular contexts. They also restrict the possibilities that linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts have to shift and accommodate the aspectual type. If no modifiers requires any shifts, e-times trigger the inference of default contexts. Such contexts elevate e-times to full-fledged truth-making situations by assigning default properties to them. • From the start, I have based the notion that e-times and e-parts are the spatiotemporal counterparts of underspecified semantic descriptions on the observation that linguistic information is both partial and vague. This raises further questions concerning the gestalt of e-times and eparts: Do e-times and e-parts have determinate or indeterminate shapes? Are they exactly or roughly located in space and time? What constitutes their identity if not the maximal specificity of their characteristics? Resuming the discussion of sortal concepts, I claim that e-times are defined by bundles of snippets of information. The information is relevant for the (partial) identification of individual referents. The conception of e-times and e-parts, however, does not simply project the vagueness of semantic descriptions onto the world. The ontological entities that correspond to the descriptions are necessarily fiat objects. Accordingly, they are not demarcated by definite bona fide boundaries but are subject to the graduality and vagueness of the physical world itself. The structure of the world does not provide a reliable criterion for delimiting fiat entities. We do not know exactly to which part of a situation a particular temporal relation refers. All we know is that temporal relations often do not refer to the total temporal extent of individuals. In text interpretation, we often may not know much about the shape of e-times. Nor do we know their exact duration. Unity, however, is not tied to sharp boundaries. Both fiat and natural bounda-

84

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

ries may be fuzzy, as, for instance, the boundary of the Alps (fiat) and the boundaries of alpine vegetation (bona fide).

4.3.2 Stretches and Bits: Morphological Properties of Partial Structures It is important to distinguish between e-times and e-parts as a linguistic function and the ontological 'material' underlying these e-times and parts. Even if the portions of the world that propositions refer to are produced by the judgment carried by the proposition, these segments are segments of something, nonetheless. These ontological counterparts of e-times and e-parts are partial structures. E-times and -parts do not necessarily respect the 'natural' unity and gestalt of particulars but just delimit segments - the partial structures - of these objects. Chapter IV will deal with the question which ontological status exactly partial structures hold. The morphological properties of partial structures correspond to the underspecification of sortal descriptions. They may be vague in size and duration, position, and quality. Stretches are partial structures that are (normally) not tangential parts of the associated particulars. Tangentiality, however, is not generally excluded. Rather the linguistic descriptions of stretches are underspecified with regard to their spatial or temporal position within the respective particulars. Stretches do not need to comprise definite or exact boundaries. Rather, their spatial or temporal extents are indeterminate and they are limited by clines, that is, fuzzy and extended boundary zones28. Accordingly, the probability that an area of a particular is involved in a particular stretch decreases the more, the further one moves away from the center of this stretch 28

The notion of clines is adopted from statistical descriptions in natural science. A clinal distribution is a distribution of frequencies that shows a systematic gradation over space. Clines, accordingly, are vague boundary regions demarcating an accumulation of entities of a certain kind or with a special property. The frequency of these entities declines towards the outer regions. I would like to thank Barry Smith who proposed this term. He also made me aware that blurs, the expression I had formerly used (cf. Trautwein 2000), suggests that stretches are the result of a distorted perception. Subjectivity in this sense, however, is a connotation that is not intended with regard to the conception of partial structures. In contrast, it has to be stressed that the partial structures which correspond to e-times and e-parts are regular parts of the world.

85

Establishing Times

(illustrated by the fading-out effect in the illustrations, cf. Figure 20). In this sense, stretches are temporal or spatial approximations and are furthermore subject to a certain granularity. This implies that they are not arbitrarily extended in time and space. Their extent does not depend on intrinsic properties but on the partition made by a particular perspective. They are less complex than particulars, but more complex than points or coordinates. Figure 20 illustrates stretches in contrast to points and simple regions. Points / Coordinates 1-dimensional

•

2-dimensional

·

Regions

Stretches

mmm

Figure 20: Stretches in contrast to points and regions

Stretches also resemble the fields of human perception, like, for example, the visual field or the temporal window of perceptual moments 29 . This similarity is quite intended, as the text analysis in chapter II proved that judgment fields are restricted to the limits of the discourse frame, and, indirectly, also to the perceptive thresholds of discourse participants.

29

The notion of perceptual moments is used in cognitive-psychological theories on both the temporal processing of perception and the processing of the perceptions of time and temporal objects. These theories try to find evidence to show that the human faculty to integrate moments into coherent units is subject to a fixed temporal threshold. The temporal extent of this perceptual window is supposed to range between 3 and 7 seconds, dependent on the respective theory. This hypothesis appears to be a rather controversial one in the current discussion of cognitive science. Nonetheless, it is a suitable pattern for the explanation of temporal windowing. For an overview on the cognitive-psychological theory of perceptual moments models, cf. Patterson 1990.

86

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

Complex

Primitive Stretches

Semistretches

Bits

Closed sequence

Open sequence

Figure 21: Primitive and complex structures built by stretches in a one-dimensional space. With regard to boundedness, partial structures subdivide into proper stretches, semi-stretches, or bits. The schema also indicates that two or more partial structures of a particular may define open or closed sequences, which reconstruct the extent of an interval-shaped temporal duration

Stretches may comprise one or both temporal boundaries of their associated situation particulars. The vagueness of the bounding sections of stretches can be interpreted in two ways: either we know that an etime is unbounded and therefore a non-tangential part of an individual or there is no information about boundaries available, such that we do not know whether it is a tangential or non-tangential part. Proper stretches typically function as the establishing times of states or activities. Semi-stretches include either the left or the right boundary of the relating situation. Thus they are the typical e-times of ingressive or egressive aspectual classes, as, for instance, achievements. In analogy to proper stretches, the vagueness of their 'open end' can be interpreted as indicating either unboundedness or underspecification. Bits embrace both the initial and the final boundary of a situation. They build an exceptional case, for they cover the entire particular entity they are part of30. Moreover, we can regard two or more partial structures of one individual as a sequence. It is possible then to model more complex structures and even to approximate interval-like temporal entities.

4.4 The Underspecification of Verbal Semantics Klein (1994) observes that distinguishing properties of the world from properties of lexical content leads to the undesirable impression that the semantics of natural language provide us with inadequate representa30

We could also say that bits coincide with the particulars they are part of. However, I disregard for the present whether or not a bit is identical with the associated particular.

Establishing Times

87

tions of the world: "This almost sounds as if sleeping were the wrong word to describe sleeping" (Klein 1994: p. 33). The conflict is obvious: how can we say that the semantic (or lexical) content of a verb denotes an interval-like temporal structure that 'has no boundaries' whereas the world contains almost only situations with determinate durations, positions, and relations? The conception of e-times makes the notion of underspecification more precise and illuminates what it means that the features a concept includes 'do not match' with the properties of world. The windowing effect only respects the qualities of a particular part of an object or of a situation. A verb-argument structure may thus denote that an e-time is a part and that it is a tangential part of an individual (like verbs of the bounded aspectual classes). Or the verb denotes that it is a part of an individual and lacks furthermore any information about where this part is positioned within the temporal path of the situation (as verbs of the non-bounded aspectual classes do). In this way, it is no longer necessary to assume that the spatiotemporal structure which a semantic content identifies diverges from the actual spatiotemporal constellation to which we refer. The underspecification of information about physical reality corresponds to an indefinite linguistic description of a part of an individual. Therefore the determinacy or indeterminacy of temporal and spatial properties depends on the informativeness of such a description. How many details we may learn about shape, size, position, or relations depends on the sortal expression. Thus even if definite determination is involved, the proposition denotes an implicit indefinite quantification over a part of this referent. The spatial region framing this part is at the same time the spatial frame of the judgment field. Thus this part is the entity that the critical property expressed by an assertion is about. Example (78) explicates how a plain assertion about a large object quantifies implicitly over (at least) one of the object's parts (the translation into predicate logic, however, is not meant to be taken as an actual semantic representation). (78)

Die Straße ist mit Schlaglöchern übersäht.

'The street is strewn with potholes.' 3 \y [ streetf}') Λ 3Ζ [ part_of(z, Y) Λ strewn_with_potholes(z) ] ]

88

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

4.4.1 Markedness and Precisification 31 Just as the critical predication quantifies over parts of particulars, aspectual classes are features predicated on parts of natural situations. This implies, however, that situations of the real world often have much more parts about which aspectuality tells nothing. Or to put it more strongly: The question of which parts of a situation an aspectual class disregards is just as crucial as the question of which parts it specifies. Otherwise the given system of aspectual classes would not be possible at all. Thus aspectual classes do not only correspond to the internal structure of truth-making situations but also to the features of establishing times. Figure 22 illustrates how the four dynamic aspectual categories and the possible intermediate categories interact with the establishing features. "PRESTATE H pre-states I

:

Iflgp"

INITIALSTAGE

FINAL STAGE

RESULT

only accomodations: bis gestern in Berlin sein

HAPPENINGS

losfahren, klopfen, platzen

ingr procs

besetzen, blockieren ACTIVITIES

eine Wand streichen

_

laufen, essen, lachen

proc accos

ein Haus bauen, einen Apfel essen

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

erreichen, finden, merken sich anlehnen an

ACHIEVEMENTS ach res

only accomodations: in 5 Minuten im Bett liegen

? r%illS§ll

result states'H

Figure 22: The correspondence of the dynamic aspectual classes and the corresponding establishing times

Let me turn to the main categories first. 31

I use the terms precisify and precisification for any dynamic processing of information, such as growing knowledge bases or text/discourse understanding, which specify further circumstances or details of concepts that are already incorporated in the knowledge base. Precisifications always preserve the consistency of information.

Establishing Times

89

• The most unspecific e-times are those of activities (as long as we disregard statives). Activities just denote an arbitrary stage out of the temporal path of a situation which is normally neither initial nor final. Accordingly, they do not specify any boundaries or any telic directedness. Nonetheless, the wider context may indicate that boundaries are involved. • The e-times of accomplishments, too, are normally non-tangential parts of situations. In contrast to activities, however, accomplishments focus on the culmination of a gradual development. At this stage, it is already plausible, but not inescapable, that the development will eventually lead to a natural result. Accomplishments, therefore, are telic in the sense that their establishing times are directed either towards a natural end or along the course of a natural development. 32 • Achievements focus on the final stage. They specify the transition from the preparing stage to the result. Parsons (1990: p. 24) claims that an achievement "culminates when it 'happens'". This is at least what the perspective of an achievement allows us to see of a natural situation. Therefore it is not necessary (and much too strong) to claim that the truth-making situations of achievements do generally not involve any preparing activities. The question of whether or not such a preparing stage exists, however, is 'backgrounded' by the sortal description. Accordingly, temporal adverbials may not modify these unspecific stages nor can the English progressive zoom into them. • Among the five main classes, happenings constitute the most peculiar category. Happenings are the 'interface' between the highly 32

The graphical representation of the e-times of accomplishments as nearly final stages might not really be an inevitable conclusion. In fact, activities and accomplishments are often made of the same 'material'. Thus one could conclude that both eating and eating an apple can focus on the same central stage of a natural situation. In this respect, the expressiveness of the schema in Figure 22, p. 88, is not fully sufficient to illustrate that these concepts are underspecified on a large scale. As we have seen, we cannot predict exactly where a central e-time is located within the course of a situation. I have chosen this kind of representation, however, to clarify that any presupposed or resulting situations are completely out of the view of activities while accomplishments at least suggest that a result is 'near'. Thus the chart should be regarded rather as a heuristic tool. It explains how the windowing of attention effects the properties of fiat parts. The selectivity becomes relevant when we attempt to sequence situations: Accomplishments predict that the situation denoted by the immediately following description will prove whether or not the natural result of the telic development is reached. Activities, in contrast, predict nothing for the situations of succeeding sentences.

90

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

specific achievements and the unspecific activities. It is not clear sometimes whether happenings include very much or very little of the temporal features of a situation. It is undeniable that they denote that a presupposed state is ended by a change. This change, however, can lead both to a continuous motion (as for ingressives as losfahren 'to move off, weglaufen 'to run away') and to the persistence of an occurrence (as for temporally minimal situations such as knock, burst etc.). Further developments and the duration of these resultant situations are neglected.33 As soon as the initial stage terminates the presupposed situation, the minimal consensus about the temporal course is satisfied. The mapping from establishing times onto aspectual classes suggests that the steps from one focus to the next and from one category to the neighboring one are discrete. However, the e-times of all situation types distribute continuously across the courses of natural situations. As a consequence, neighboring categories merge into one another. From a linguistic perspective, we can regard the fuzzy areas in between as intermediate categories. Such categories are generally ambiguous. The fact that intermediate types may only occur between neighboring categories verifies the correlation between aspectual classes and the features of establishing times. For instance, it is impossible to find a class mediating activities and achievements. The grammatical behavior of aspectual classes perfectly mirrors this restriction. • Proc-acco verbs are a common example of intermediate classes (cf. Mori, Löbner and Micha 1992; Eckardt 1996; Zybatow 2001). In German, this class includes verbs of physical treatment as das Hemd bügeln 'to iron the pants' or den Boden wischen 'to wipe the floor' and some particle verbs as das Rohr verbiegen 'to bend the pipe', das Segel zerfetzen 'to tear the sail to pieces' etc. • Engelberg (1994) observes that there is another small group of verbs such as blockieren 'to block' and besetzen 'to occupy' that have

33

This view differs from the characterization of minimal situations in Trautwein (2000). Minimal situations comprise both the initial and final temporal boundary. The idea is that all stages of a minimal situation conflate within one short time period. Thus the start, the persistence, and the end of the development almost coincide in time. It turns out, however, that this definition is too strong, as it predetermines too many details of a truth-maker. Explosions, for instance, may last for 20 minutes, but when we say the factory blew up, no-one actually expects the explosion to terminate within a certain period of time.

Establishing Times

91

both a resultative and a continuative reading. Engelberg explains their ambiguity as a shift between activities and accomplishments. Due to their possible ingressive reading, I prefer to position them between happenings and activities. The category is accordingly named ingrproc. Moreover, the existence of such an intermediate class proves that there is also a smooth transition between both 'ends' of the e-time schema, although, at first glance, the properties of happenings and activities seem to exclude one another. • States are normally incompatible with any kind of dynamic aspectual class. Correspondingly, Stative verbs do not occur in dynamic contexts or vice versa. Accommodations triggered by temporal modification, however, can force us to interpret states as the presupposed stages or as the results of transitional dynamic situations, cf. bis gestern / ab morgen in Berlin wohnen 'to live in Berlin until yesterday / from tomorrow' or in fiinf Minuten im Bett liegen 'to lie / be lying in bed in five minutes'. • Verbs like herumlegen um 'to put around ', anschmiegen an 'to nestle against', anlehnen an 'to lean against', etc. have both a dynamic resultative and a stative reading. This rather marginal class of acco-res verbs covers the spectrum between achievements and result states. Any categorization of aspectual classes is necessarily just as fluid as the temporal properties of situations are gradual. In particular, verbargument combinations shift between two neighboring categories when it is not clear if a certain segment of a situation path is long enough to be perceived as an independent stage. The dissociation of accomplishments and achievements, for instance, raises some serious problems. Many transitions take only a very short time, such that we can hardly recognize the preparatory development as an extended phase. (79)

Gabi öffnet eine Dose. 'Gabi openpresent a can.'

(80)

Gabi öffnet ein Fenster /die Augen. 'Gabi openpresent a window / her eyes.'

accomplishment achievements

(81)

Helga fegt die Krümel vom Tisch. accomplishment / achievement 'Helga sweppresent some crumbs off the table.'

(82)

Helga fegt die Vase vom Tisch. 'Helga sweppresent the vase off the table.'

(83)

Carsten isst eine Hand voll Nüsse. 'Carsten eatprcs a handful of nuts.'

achievement accomplishment / achievement

92 (84)

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

Carsten isst einen Teller voll Nüsse. 'Carsten eatprcs a plateful of nuts.'

accomplishment

It is not clear if the actions in sentences (81) and (83) took place all at once or little by little. All examples show that aspectuality depends on the individual way actions and developments involve their objects as well as on the material structure of the objects.

4.4.2

Establishing Features in the Light of Markedness and Precisification

Klein (1994) observes that the lexical content of verbs is a selective representation of the actual conditions of reality. Natural language abstracts over a class of contexts and over the real temporal qualities within these contexts. What does that signify, however, for the concrete semantic features of lexical items and for the conceptual interpretations of these features? The fact that a concept does not provide a positive specification for a particular feature does not imply that the opposite (i.e. a negative incomplete description) holds true. To assert that the semantics of a verb carries the feature non-bounded, for instance, does not imply that the situation of reference is unlimited in space or time. It is the concept which is underspecified and not the world. Indeed, most of the decompositional approaches touch on this problem, too. (85)

Aspectual classes and lexical decomposition Activities Accomplishments Achievements

DO(x, Ρ (χ, y)) CAUSE(do(jc, Ρ (x, y)), become(ä (χ, >'))) BECOME(T? (x, y))

Presuming that DO(.r, Ρ (χ, y)) is the description of an activity, do we generally exclude then that there might be a relation R such that CAUSE(DO(x, Ρ (χ, y)) λ BECOME(i? (χ, >>))) is also a description of this situation? If yes, we would have to face the consequence that situations categorized as activities can never have results. Analogously, situations viewed as achievements could never include preparatory actions or developments. Each concrete variable assignment B E C O M E ( R ( x , y)) would entail that there is no assignment Ρ for a predicate variable P, such that CAUSE(DO(x, Ρ (χ, y)) λ b e c o m e ( R (χ, y))) holds true. It

93

Establishing Times

seems, however, that lexical decomposition does not intend such a conclusion. Lexical forms like those in (85) are to represent only the semantic content of verbs or the information comprehended by the underlying concepts. However, they do not - at least not exhaustively represent the properties of the world. If we look at what we know about the world if we know that BECOME(R (x, y)) holds, we find that we cannot represent the properties denoted by the basic units of the decomposition by means of ordinary binary features. One reason for this is that the establishing features do not stand in equipollent oppositions to each other. The non-specification of a feature does not imply a negative specification. Thus the set of values {+, - } does not exhaust the extension of such. Broman Olsen (1994) proposes comprehending situation properties as standing in a privative opposition. Privative features are mapped onto an element of the set {+, unmarked}. In this context, however, 'unmarked' does not mean 'neutral' or 'not specifiable with respect to this feature'. Establishing times which are not marked by a specific aspectual feature may get marked for this feature as soon as their descriptions are further precisified. Accordingly, 'unmarked' just means 'unspecified' or 'not yet specified'. Using privative oppositions, the five aspectual classes can be represented by four aspectual features. situation aspects

[+ dynamic]

[ 0 dynamic] STATES

love, know [+ asymmetric]

[ 0 asymmetric] ACTIVITIES

laugh, walk [+ telic]

[ 0 telic]

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

write / eat sth. [ 0 initially bounded]

[+ initially bounded]

ACHIEVEMENTS

HAPPENINGS

win,

find

block, burst

Figure 23: The five aspectual classes, represented using privative features

94

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

This schema is instructive in that it depicts the direction taken by the precisifications of explicit updates or contextual inferences. As far as possible, precisifications fill the information gaps that the establishing features leave open. If contexts are congruent with a verbal description, they do not shift an aspectual class. Incongruent contexts, in contrast, guide the interpreter to accommodate the aspectual class. Precisifications detail new aspects of the world of reference, confirm or block default interpretations, and thus drive the specificity of aspectual and temporal information on to higher degrees of concreteness. Updating and inferring, correspondingly, move the information state down the tree of Figure 23. In this respect, the privative aspectual features build a hierarchy of informativeness. precisification

•

[+ d y n a m i c ] > [+ a s y m m e t r i c ] > [+ telic] > [+ initially b o u n d e d ] Μ

shifting

Figure 24: Hierarchy of the privative aspectual features with regard to informativeness

Aspectual shifting, in contrast, does not have to obey this hierarchy. Accommodations may delete existing specifications of features and may even jump between different feature assignments.

5 Summary and Conclusions: Establishing Features, Temporal Relations, and Temporal Sequencing

The discussion reveals the crucial differences between the occurrence of temporality in the world, the conceptualization of human cognition, and the lexicalization of natural language. In all three domains (the ontological, the cognitive, and the linguistic one), situations or their representations constitute temporal structure. The central point of temporal interpretation, however, is how the conceptualization of situations comprehends the information about time. Interval-based approaches presume that situation concepts simply approximate the characteristics of natural situations. These theories predict that the conceptual and linguistic reflections of date and time, of duration, and

Summary and Conclusions

95

of temporal relations are as specific as the constellations of the world or that they are at least predetermined by the varied properties of these constellations. Conceptualization, however, is selective. On the one hand, the windowing of attention filters the information that enters into the preverbal message when we focus on what we want to communicate. On the other hand, lexical semantics function like an information filter, for they predetermine what we are able to communicate. Aspectuality, then, is the linguistic surface symptom of the interaction between both kinds of filters. The touchstone for any theory on temporal interpretation is the sequencing of situations. Besides tense and the rhetorical structure of a text, the aspectuality of verbs and verbal projections is another basic prerequisite for computing temporal relations. Since establishing times anchor a situation referent in a text-interpretation model, all implicit temporal relations of a text (that is relations deriving from rhetoric structure) and some of the explicit relations (that is relations denoted by tense, adverbials, and conjunctions) refer to e-times. Taking boundedness into account, the theory defended here makes the correct prognosis for the possible ambiguities of temporal relationship. Recall the sample sequence in (86) (reiterating (33)). (86)

Audi kam nachhause (Si). Matti spielte Klavier (S2). 'Andi came home. Matti playpreterite the piano.'

S2 during Si

The sentence sequence indicates that the e-time of the first sentence is located before the e-time of the second. The achievement coming home describes an e-time which is finally bounded. The activity playing the piano denotes a non-bounded e-time. Assuming that an e-time has the possibility to continue or to end in a direction in which it is nonbounded, we can predict the possible interval relations as shown in Figure 25.

96

Time and Temporal Structure: a Conceptual Analysis

Ε-times relations Si

^

Possible interval relations

r ^ -ft ^ »4-

starts

Ά

during

Ά

overlap

meets

A

before

Figure 25: The possible interval relations ensuing from the e-times described by (86)

We find the possible relations by extending the open ends of the respective e-times. Comparing the resultant set of relations to the set in Figure 10, p. 52, we find that the underspecification of the descriptions of establishing properties covers the entire spectrum of ambiguity. Section 4 of chapter IV will present a detailed calculus handling the underspecified temporal relations between e-times.

III A Methodological Framework Combining Formal Semantics and Formal Knowledge Representation

1

Introduction

The theory of establishing times evolved by chapter II demonstrates that the function of grammatical meaning is not to transmit world knowledge in general but to identify referents and truth-makers by means of as little and as distinctive information as possible in a given discourse context. This little amount of distinctive information only reflects a fraction of what we can know about a discourse domain, and, moreover, reflects a natural language's very own perspective on the world. We have seen that the correspondence between the linguistic and non-linguistic representation levels is far from being a simple one-toone mapping. It rather involves several kinds of relationship which the following questions characterized: •

Which aspects of world knowledge are encoded in lexical semantics, which are not?

•

How does the actual knowledge content of lexical items determine how we are able to refer to the world?

•

How does the background of our non-linguistic knowledge enable us to compensate for the fact that there are some aspects of the world that lexical semantics is not able to express explicitly?

•

Which position between the information decoded from linguistic units and the information inferred from background knowledge does a conceptual model of a text hold?

All these questions emphasize the discrepancy which lies between (i) the limited amount of information about spatiotemporal properties which a natural-language text is able to transport, (ii) the unlimited amount of information a conceptual model is able to comprise, after the linguistic information has been enriched by background knowledge,

98

Framework for Formal Semantics and Knowledge Representation

and (iii) the infinite diversity of spatiotemporal characteristics that constitute the world of referents and truth-makers. Within this picture, conceptual knowledge has a central position, as its power of abstraction mediates between language and the world. The conceptual analysis demonstrates that neither grammatical form nor the spatiotemporal structure of the world alone are able to explain such a complex phenomenon as temporal reference. It is cognition which abstracts over contexts, selects aspects of contexts, and puts these aspects into relation. Aspectuality, for instance, is a feature of the type concepts lexicalized in natural language. Aspectual classes reflect that a situation concept does or does not map certain temporal characteristics of the ontological structure of situations. Figure 26 presents a rather general model of language and communication which elucidates the core idea.

"• • • · Lexicalization, ,V interpretation y


) Λ V«! „, Vv] „ [ (cp(uu ν,) Λ ... Λ φ(um, v„)) ->·

Vc [ :c(c, (y, v h ...vn)) -> 3c' [ (:c (c', (χ, ->• (:c(c, (y, vi, ...v„)) -» ψ) ] ] ]

...um» - > ( / / ) - •

A concept reflects the possibilities of another concept with respect to the relation φ if and only if φ holds between χ and y, and, for all conceptual conditions involving y (and further second relata of φ pairs), there is a conceptual condition involving Λ; (and further first relata of φ pairs), such that the conclusions from the condition on χ are included in the conclusions derivable from the conditions on y. This tells us that the RP relation expresses that one concept carries just a part of the information carried by another concept. The relation φ guarantees that the succeeding implications do not just accidentally hold. The definition assumes the existence of a homomorphism from an original level onto a simplifying heuristic level. This homomorphism finds expression in the fact represented by theorem ETI that conditions on the domain Y always imply conditions on the domain X. ETI. RP(x,y, φ) —> Vc [ :c (c, (y, v,, ...v,,)) -> 3c' [ :c (c, (y, vh ...v„>) -> -> :c(c', (x, ...w„,»]] ETI can be proved if we trivially set ψ= c\ so that EDI will derive c —> c'. This is quite desirable: If we presume, for instance, that partial relations reflect the possibilities of interval relations, then, knowing the sequence relation between two intervals χ and y, we can derive the corresponding relations for all possible pairs of one part of χ and one part of y. The definition of EDI, however, does not go far enough. It says that any RPS predicts the conditions possible for the associated referent. But it neither explains why this is actually the case nor does it clarify what it means to be an RPS of a particular. Therefore, we need a more comprehensive structuring relation that covers the function and the inference potential of RPSs. This venture, however, rests on the basic notions of what conceptualizations are. Using a definition by Guarino (1998, quote in Degen, Heller and Herre 2001) as a pattern, I assume that conceptualizations are structures formed (1) by the objects of a certain domain, (2) by the conceptual conditions on these objects, and (3) by the contexts of

121

Epistemological Presumptions

evaluation40. I presuppose for the time being the notion of domains. Let a concrete conceptualization DC be a structure (X., Ct, cX\..,„) of a domain of elements X and a set of conceptual conditions cX\..,m on elements of X, such that the conditions have to be evaluated relatively to the possible evaluation contexts of Ct, and let h be an implication relation holding between concrete conceptualizations and propositions, then a simplifying heuristics is defined as follows: ED2. Simplifying Heuristics SHeu(3Xx={X, Ctj,d(,...m)^¥[Xxh

ψ-^Χ/l·

ψ]]

That is: a conceptual condition φ is a simplifying heuristics for the domain Y with regard to a domain of conceptual conditions if and only if there is a domain X such that for every element y of Y their is an element of X that reflects the possibilities of y, and for every concrete conceptualization in Y there is a concrete conceptualization in X such that any conclusion implied by the conceptual conditions holding for X is also implied by the conceptual conditions holding in Y. In simpler terms, the definition characterizes a heuristic relation as a 'link' from one domain to another. The conceptualizations of the 'linked' domain tend to be less informative than those of the original domain. Conceptualizations of a domain linked by a heuristic property are heuristic conceptualizations. We have to exclude that a heuristic conceptualization entails any conditions or conclusions which would contradict a condition or conclusion of the original conceptualization. All simplifying heuristic conceptualizations approximate the original ones, for they predict what the possibilities for the original conceptual conditions look like. It has become obvious by now that the definition of simplifying heuristics serves to determine what makes an arbitrary part of a referent an RPS. Other areas of application are however conceivable. For the sake of completeness, let me first introduce a complementary definition of anticipating heuristics (ED3). This relation inverts the role of the original and the heuristic domain.

40

Guarino (ibid.) actually defines a conceptualization as a tuple {D, W, H) of a set of objects D, a set of possible worlds W, and a set of possible relations H, such that every R e % is a total function from worlds into sets of relations.

122

Ontological and Epistemological Conditions on Temporal Reference

ED3. Anticipating Heuristic AHeu( chr(x) = chr(y) XT3.

XE is transitive x,y, ζ :: (Sit Θ Chron) ΑXE(X,y) AXE(y, z) —> XE(x, z)

Axiom XA2 presumes furthermore that XE is mereologically true, saying that parthood necessarily entails temporal enclosure. XA2. Mereological truth of XE P{x,y) => XE(x, y) A further important theorem shows that a situoid χ may be temporally enclosed in a situoid y without χ being a part of y or χ overlapping with y. We simply assume that every temporal part of any situoid that contains y also contains x. XT4.

Temporal enclosure of mereologically independent (e.g. non-overlapping) entities Vz Vw,·, uj[ (:P(x, ζ, κ,·) λ :P(y, z, Uj)) -* Vv [ (:P(v, z, Time) A :P(Y, v, Uj)) :P(x, v,«,) ] ^ XE(x, y) ]

132

Ontological and Epistemological Conditions on Temporal Reference

Saying: if two situoids χ and y are parts of a further situoid ζ with respect two whatever universal, and if every temporal part of ζ which contains y also contain, then, necessarily, y encloses χ temporally. Figure 34 illustrates such a constellation of situoids.

> Time Figure 34: Temporal Enclosure between two situoids χ and y framed by a third situoid 2

X T 4 is not relevant for chronoids since any chronoid /,· that encloses a chronoid tj temporally also has t, as its part. XT5.

For chronoids, temporal enclosure is equivalent to parthood (ili:: Chronoid AtjV. Chronoid λ XE(th tjj) P{th tj)

Based on XE, we can recursively define several useful relations. The definitions comprise the analogues of two interval relations. XD2.

Temporal Parallelity (« 7th interval relation: 'x equals y') X={x,y) =df XE{x,y) AXE{y,x)

XD3.

Temporal Overlap XO(x, y) =DF 3 ν 3W [ :P(v, x, Time) λ

:P(YV, y,

Time) λ X=(V,

W) ]

XD4. Proper Temporal Overlap XPO(x, y) =df XO(x, y) Λ ~^XE{X, y) Λ -XE(y, x) XD5. Proper Temporal Enclosure (« 5th interval relation: 'x during y') XPE(x,y) =φ 3v [ :P(v, x, Time) AX=(v,y) Λ VZ [XPO(z,y)-*XO(z,

χθν) ]]

I emphasize that all chronological relations are relativized to Time, although other dimensions that motivate sequences of individuals in a one-dimensional space, such as causality, are conceivable.

A Formal Ontology of Time and Temporal Structure

133

The definitions of the remaining interval relations - all of which reflect ordered temporal sequences of individuals - make use of a relation primitive, Temporal Precedence, symbolized by X