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The Present Perfect: an Exercise in the Study of Events, Plurality and Aspect

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The Present Perfect: an Exercise in the Study of Events, Plurality and Aspect PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL FACULDADE DE LETRAS PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS KARINA VERONICA MOLSING THE PRESENT PERFECT: AN EXERCISE IN THE STUDY OF EVENTS, PLURALITY AND ASPECT Porto Alegre 2010 PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL FACULDADE DE LETRAS PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS KARINA VERONICA MOLSING THE PRESENT PERFECT: AN EXERCISE IN THE STUDY OF EVENTS, PLURALITY AND ASPECT Porto Alegre 2010 Karina Veronica Molsing THE PRESENT PERFECT: AN EXERCISE IN THE STUDY OF EVENTS, PLURALITY AND ASPECT Tese de Doutorado apresentada ao Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras/Lingüística Aplicada, da Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, como parte dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do título de Doutora em Letras. Orientadora: Prof.(a) Dr.(a) Ana Maria Tramunt Ibaños PORTO ALEGRE 2010 KARI NA VERON ICA MOLSI NG O THE PRESENT PERFECT: AN EXERCISE IN THE STUDY OF EVENTS. PLU- RALITY AND ASPECT Tese apresentada como requisito para obtengSo do grau de Doutor, pelo Programa de P6s-Graduag6o em Letras da Faculdade de Letras da Pontificia Universidade Cat6lica do Rio Grande do Sul. Aprovada em 22 de janeiro de 2010 BANCA EXAMINADORA: fui".x rruo.r r. lt^;"^ Profa. Dr. Ana Maria Tramunt lbafros - PUCRS io de MouraMenuzzi- UFRGS Dr. Roberta Pires de Oliveira - UFSC I d Prof. Cl6udio Goncalves de Almeida - PUCRS Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation was like playing a really long singles tennis match. I’ve had some good coaching and some good practice, and even a sponsor. All have contributed to varying degrees to my achieving the goal of writing a “winning” dissertation, but ultimately, like a singles match, the player wins, or loses, alone. Hopefully, there are more winning ideas in this dissertation than losing ones, but I’ve done my best and have tried not to put any of my contributors to shame. I’d like to thank specifically: My advisor, Prof. Ana Ibaños, for putting up with me over these four years and encouraging me to stay on course despite my insecurities. Prof. Jorge Campos, for your non-trivial encouragement and meta-advising. Professors and colleagues with whom I’ve had contact over the years through conferences and seminars and all of whom have contributed directly or indirectly to the realization of this dissertation: Prof. Sergio Menuzzi, Profa. Roberta Pires, Profa. Teresa Wachowicz, Renato Basso, Gabriela Hinrichs Conteratto, Bridget Copley, Prof. Marcelo Ferreira, Prof. Achille Varzi, Prof. Paul Pietroski, Prof. Kai von Fintel. Fernando, for your essential and unwavering support, on and off the court. The professors who have honored me with their presence on my defense committee. CNPq, for being my sponsor over these four years. PUCRS and the Graduate Program in Letters, for the institutional support. i Resumo A presente tese visa um duplo objetivo. O objetivo geral é contribuir para o entendimento de um método de investigação que enfatiza as relações interdisciplinares e intradisciplinares nas análises de fundamentos, teóricas e empíricas. O objetivo específico é aplicar este método ao tópico de fenômenos tempo-aspectuais nas línguas naturais. Para obter um entendimento melhor do significado associado à estrutura do pretérito perfeito composto (PPC) no português brasileiro, esta tese assume uma abordagem que envolve a construção de interfaces em todos os níveis de análise. O problema excepcional que o PPC apresenta é o seu significado muitas vezes obrigatório de repetição, mesmo que sem modificação adverbial, e apesar da sua estrutura morfológica, ter +particípio passado, que se espelha nas de outras línguas românicas e germânicas. A abordagem assumida neste estudo envolve quatro etapas: i) uma investigação de fundamentos filosóficos de plurais e eventos; ii) uma investigação dos fundamentos lingüísticos de plurais e eventos; iii) uma análise de como as primeiras duas etapas modelam a concepção de teorias de aspecto lexical e aspecto gramatical; iv) uma análise composicional do PPC, levando em consideração as primeiras três etapas. ii Abstract The objective of this dissertation is two-fold. The general objective is to contribute to the understanding of a method of investigation that emphasizes interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary relations in guiding foundational, theoretical and empirical analyses. The specific objective is to apply this method to the topic of temporal-aspectual phenomena in natural languages. To achieve a better understanding of the meaning associated to the present perfect structure in Brazilian Portuguese, known as the “pretérito perfeito composto” (PPC), this dissertation takes an approach that involves constructing interfaces at every level of analysis. The unique problem the PPC presents is its often obligatory meaning of repetition, even in the absence of adverbial modification and despite its morphological structure, ter +past participle, mirroring those of other Romance and Germanic languages. The approach taken in this study involves four stages: i) an investigation of the philosophical foundations of plurals and events; ii) an investigation of the linguistic foundations of plurals and events; iii) an examination of how the first two stages influence the conception of theories of lexical aspect and grammatical aspect; iv) a compositional analysis of the PPC, taking into consideration the previous three stages. iii List of Figures Figure 1. Schema of the Interface Method of Investigation……………………… 4 Figure 2.1 Schema of Stage I of the Investigation: Philosophical Foundations…. 49 Figure 2.2 Schema of Stages I and II of the Investigation: From Foundations to Theory …………………………………………………...….……………..……... 72 Figure 3.1 Schema of Stage III of the Investigation: From Theory-External to Theory- Internal………………………………………………………….………………… 105 Figure 3.2 Bach’s (1986) Schema of Eventualities………………………………. 107 Figure 3.3 Comrie’s (1976) Aspectual Oppositions……………………………… 115 Figure 4.1 Schema of Stage IV of the Investigation: From Theory-Internal to Analysis…………………………………………………………………………... 152 iv List of Tables Table 1.1 Reichenbach (1947) Tense-Aspect Schema…………………………… 14 Table 1.2 English PrP Lexical Inferences………………………………………... 24 Table 1.3 Portuguese PPC Lexical Inferences….................................................... 25 Table 1.4 English PrP Readings (Pancheva 2003)……………………………….. 36 Table 1.5 Portuguese PPC Readings……………………………………………... 38 Table 3.1 Aspectual Features of Eventualities…………………………………… 108 Table 3.2 Aspectual Classification Tests (Dowty 1979, p. 60)…………………... 110 Table 3.3 Tense-Aspect Relations based on Klein-Kratzer………………………. 113 Table 3.4 The Perfect System based on Klein (1994)……………………………. 114 Table 3.5 Event Type Shifts……………………………………………………… 121 Table 3.6 Quantization and Cumulativity………………………………………... 125 Table 4.1 PrP vs. Simple Past: Lexical Aspect…………………………………... 159 Table 4.2 PrP and Plural Arguments……………………………………………... 161 Table 4.3 Simple Past and Plural Arguments…………………………………….. 161 Table 4.4 PPC versus Progressive (PROG): Lexical Aspect……………………... 164 Table 4.5 PPC and Plural Arguments…………………………………………….. 166 Table 4.6 PROG and Plural Arguments…………………………………………... 168 Table 4.7 PPC versus Imperfect (IMP): Lexical Aspect………………………….. 171 Table 4.8 PPC versus Present Tense: Lexical Aspect……………………………..172 Table 4.9 Present Tense and Plural Arguments…………………………………... 174 v List of Abbreviations Ag agent Arg argument AspP 1 higher aspectual projection AspP 2 lower aspectual projection BP Brazilian Portuguese Cul culmination DP determiner phrase E event interval; location time EP existential perfect FREQ frequentative pluractionality (Laca 2006) ILP individual-level predicate INCR incrementality (Rothstein 2004) INCR incremental pluractionality (Laca 2006) Imp imperfective IMP imperfect MSOL monadic second-order logic NE-PPC Northeastern préterito perfeito composto (Cabredo-Hofherr et al. 2008) NK Nishiyama and Koenig NP noun phrase Pat patient Perf perfective PL plural PPC préterito perfeito composto (present perfect structure) PROG progressive PrP English present perfect PTS Perfect Time Span theory R reference time; topic tme s perfect state (Nishiyama and Koenig 2004) S sentence S speech time SL singular SLP stage-level predicate V verb vP event structure phrase VP verb phrase T tense TP tense phrase UP universal perfect XN Extended Now theory vi List of Symbols A, B, C, … nonlogical predicates and relations e eventuality n now; speech time s state FREQ frequentative pluractional operator (Laca 2006) Gn generic/habitual operator (Lenci and Bertinetto 2000) INCR incremental function (Rothstein 2004) INCR incremental pluractional operator (Laca 2006) Imp imperfective operator PART partitive operator x, y, z, … first-order variables xx, yy, zz, … second-order variables (Boolos 1984) X, Y, Z, … second-order variables X(s) lexical inference (Nishiyama and Koenig 2004) ∃ existential operator ∀ universal operator D distributive operator (Link 1983) ⊕ material fusion (Link 1983) α, β, γ,... formulas Φ, Π, Ψ,… formulas (Schein 1993) σ plural definite description ι singular definite description λ lambda operator * pluralization operator; cumulativity ⊔ sum operation (Rothstein 2004) ¬ negation ⊆ improper inclusion ⊂ proper inclusion < temporal ordering relation ≤○ ordered overlap ≺ is-one-of (Boolos 1984) ∈ is an element of ∉ is not an element of ≤ part-of relation; partial ordering relation ∧ and & and τ running time ο overlap relation vii Table of Contents Resumo…………………………………………………………………………... i Abstract…………………………………………………………………………..
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