Temporal Relations in Abstract English and German Narrative Understanding the temporal relations which hold between situations described in a narrative Discourse is a highly complex process. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the factors we have to take into account in order to determine the temporal coherence of a narrative discourse. In par- ticular, aspectual information, tense, and world and context knowledge have to be considered and the interplay of all these factors must be specified. German is aspectually speaking an interesting language, because it does not possess a grammaticalised distinction between a perfective and imperfective aspect. In this thesis I ex- amine the German aspectual system and the interaction of the factors which have an influence on the derived temporal relation for short discourse sequences. The analysis is carried out in two steps: First, the aspectual and temporal properties of German are investigated, following the cross-linguistic framework developed by Carlota S. Smith. An account for German is given which emphasises the properties which are peculiar to this language and explains why it has to be treated differently to, for example, English. The main result for the tense Frank Schilder used in a narrative text — the Preterite — is that information regarding the end point of a described situation is based on our world knowledge and may be overridden provided context knowledge forces us to do this. Next, the more complex level of discourse is taken into account in order to derive the temporal relations which hold between the described situations. This investigation pro- vides us with insights into the interaction of different knowledge sources like aspectual information as well as world and context knowledge. This investigation of German discourse sequences gives rise to the need for a time logic which is capable of expressing fine as well as coarse (or underspecified) temporal relations between situations. An account is presented to describe exhaustively all conceivable temporal relations within a computationally tractable reasoning system, based on the interval calculus by James Allen. PhD However, in order to establish a coherent discourse for larger sequences, the hierarchical structure of a narrative has to be considered as well. I propose a Tree Description Grammar The University of Edinburgh — a further development of Tree Adjoining Grammars — for parsing the given discourse 1997 structure, and stipulate discourse principles which give an explanation for the way a discourse should be processed. i I furthermore discuss how a discourse grammar needs to distinguish between discourse structure and discourse processing. The latter term can be understood as navigating through a discourse tree, and reflects the process of how a discourse is comprehended. Finally, a small fragment of German is given which shows how the discourse grammar can be applied to short discourse sequences of four to seven sentences. The conclusion discusses the outcome of the analysis conducted in this thesis and proposes likely areas of future research. Declaration I declare that this thesis has been composed by myself and that the research reported herein is my own. This thesis complies with all the regulations for the degree of PhD at the University of Edinburgh, and falls below the requisite word limit specified. Frank Schilder Edinburgh, 17th September 1997 i ii Acknowledgements Notational Conventions I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisors, Lex Holt, Sheila Glasbey and In this thesis, the following notational conventions are used: Marc Moens for taking interest in my work, and providing me with insightful feedback and a linguistic example in the body of the text is in italics which can also be used for emphasis. encouragement. (1) However linguistic examples which are numbered appear in Roman type, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my examiners, Mimo Caenepeel and Ian Pratt for their detailed comments and suggestions on the manuscript, and for a very interesting unless a literal translation into English is required: discussion during the viva. ¨ Special thanks go to my office mates Alice Drewery, Bernie Jones, and Karin Verspoor who (2) Die w¨ortliche Ubersetzung ist in Kursivschrift. were always willing victims of my linguistic experiments and provided me with the required The literal translation is in italic-writing. native speaker intuitions. The literal translation is in italics. I am also grateful for the feedback I got from the Tense and Aspect group. In particular, I (3) In numbered examples, the particular item of interest appears in bold. enjoyed the stimulating discussions with Alistair Knott and Martin Mellor. This thesis was supported by a PhD studentship awarded by the DAAD (German Acad- Material that has been added (to make a real text example easier to understand) appears in emic Exchange Service). An IBM research scholarship allowed me in addition to spend six brackets; where material has been excised (. ) three dots appear between brackets. inspiring weeks at the Institute for Logic and Linguistics in Heidelberg. Thanks to Michael A sentence or phrase which is ungrammatical is denoted by a preceding ‘ ’, while a sen- Herweg, who made this possible and interested me in all these time related problems in the tence or phrase whose well-formedness is questionable or highly questionable is denoted by a first place. preceding ‘ ’ or ‘ ’, respectively. Others who gave me feedback on my work in various ways and at various times: Alex Las- A sentence or phrase which is grammatical but unacceptable in the given context or carides, Amy Isard, Birgit Hamp, Britt Dalen Laux, Carl Vogel, Carlota Smith, Carola Eschen- expresses an contradiction is denoted by a preceding ‘ ’. bach, David Tugwell, Frank Keller, Heike Tappe, Mari Broman Olsen, Markus Egg, Nicholas Asher, Petra D¨unges, Sheila Rock, Sylvie Hancil and Zelal G¨ung¨ord ¨u. Feature structures are represented as follows: FEATURE: v alue Special thanks to my family, in particular my parents, Ingrid and Karl-Heinz, who always supported me in achieving whatever I wanted to do. Finally, thanks to Dani, who had to put up with more than three years not being together, for the time we had together. iii iv CONTENTS CONTENTS 3.2.1.2 SituationtypesinGerman . 33 3.2.1.3 Concludingremarks. 36 3.2.2 Viewpoints ................................... 36 3.2.2.1 Smith’spointofview . 37 3.2.2.2 B¨auerle’s perspective on the German Preterite .......... 40 3.2.2.3 German and the open-perfective viewpoint ............ 44 Contents 3.3 Onlyoneviewpoint? ............................... ... 50 3.3.1 Discoursestructure.. ... .... .... .... ... .... .... .. 51 3.3.2 Du hast keine Wahl, aber nutze sie. ...................... 53 3.3.2.1 English ................................ 54 1 Introduction 1 3.3.2.2 French................................. 54 1.1 The phenomena under investigation . ....... 2 3.3.2.3 Russian ................................ 55 1.2 Aimsofthethesis................................. ... 3 3.3.2.4 The viewpoint and the states .................... 55 1.2.1 Temporal relations expressed by a German narrative . ........ 4 3.3.3 Activities revised ................................ 56 1.2.2 A time logic for underspecified temporal relations . ......... 4 3.3.4 NoprogressioninGerman? . .. 58 1.2.3 A discourse tree structure as a formal representation . ......... 5 3.3.4.1 gerade dabei sein etwas zu tun .................... 58 1.3 Methodology ..................................... 5 3.3.4.2 Thenominalprogressive . 60 1.4 Overviewofthethesis ............................. .... 5 3.4 Conclusions ...................................... 62 2 Former Approaches 8 4 Discourse Sequences 64 2.1 Introduction ..................................... .. 8 4.1 Introduction ..................................... .. 64 2.2 Aspectual class, Aktionsart,aspectandthenarrative . 9 4.2 Oneviewpoint.................................... .. 67 2.2.1 Vendler(1967)................................. 11 4.2.1 Temporalschemataasintervals. .... 67 2.2.1.1 Homogeneity vs. heterogeneity . 12 4.2.1.1 ThetypologyofCaenepeel(1989) . 68 2.2.1.2 States vs.theotherclasses ..................... 13 4.2.1.2 Intervalsandsituationtypes . .. 70 2.2.1.3 Accomplishments vs. achievements .................. 13 4.2.2 Viewpoint-interface . .. 72 2.2.2 Moreaspectualclasses . 15 4.3 Situationtypes.................................. .... 73 2.3 Reichenbach’sreferencetime . .... 16 4.3.1 state/activity.state/activity. ............................ 74 2.4 Howtomovenarrativetime? . .... 17 4.3.2 event.state/activity. ................................ 78 2.4.1 Partee(1984)andHinrichs(1986). ..... 18 4.3.2.1 Consequence............................. 79 2.4.2 Dowty(1986) .................................. 18 4.3.2.2 Background.............................. 82 2.4.3 Defaultsindiscourse. .. 21 4.3.3 accomplishment.event. .............................. 86 2.4.3.1 Non-monotonic reasoning . 22 4.3.3.1 Consequence............................. 86 2.4.3.2 Lascarides&Asher(1993) . 23 4.3.3.2 Elaboration.............................. 88 2.4.3.3 Problems ............................... 25 4.3.4 punctual event.event. .............................. 89 2.5 Conclusions ...................................... 26 4.3.4.1 Consequence............................. 90 4.3.4.2 Iteration................................ 91 3 Aspectual Information Encoded in German 28 4.3.5 state/activity.event. ...............................