Word Meaning and Montague Grammar: The Semantics of Verbs and Times in Generative Semantics and in Montague's PTQ

D. R. Dowty

Springer Science & Business Media, Oct 31, 1979 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 418 pages

The most general goal of this book is to propose and illustrate a program of research in word semantics that combines some of the methodology and results in linguistic semantics, primarily that of the generative semantics school, with the rigorously formalized syntactic and semantic framework for the analysis of natural languages developed by Richard Montague and his associates, a framework in which truth and denotation with respect to a model are taken as the fundamental semantic notions. I hope to show, both from the linguist's and the philosopher's point of view, not only why this synthesis can be undertaken but also why it will be useful to pursue it. On the one hand, the linguists' decompositions of word meanings into more primitive parts are by themselves inherently incomplete, in that they deal only in distinctions in meaning without providing an account of what mean ings really are. Not only can these analyses be made complete by a model theoretic semantics, but also such an account of these analyses renders them more exact and more readily testable than they could ever be otherwise.

Contents

• MONTAGUES GENERAL THEORY OF LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTIC THEORIES OF SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS: 1
• 12 Syntax in the UG Theory and in Linguistic Theories: 3
• 122 Montagues Use of the Ambiguation Relation R: 4
• 123 Other Ways of Construing the Ambiguating Relation R: 6
• 124 The Relation R as Transformational Component: 7
• 125 R and the Potential Vacuity of the Compositionality Thesis: 8
• 126 TradeOffs between R and the Syntactic Operations: 9
• 127 Transformations as Independent Syntactic Rules: 11
• 13 Semantics in UG: 13
• 132 KatzEarly Theory as an Instance of the General Theory of Meanings: 15
• 133 The Theory of Reference in UG: 17
• 134 Generative Semantics as an Instance of UG: 18
• 14 Interpretation by Means of Translation: 21
• 142 Classical GS and UpsideDown GS: 22
• 143 Directionality: 24
• 15 Preliminaries to the Analysis of Word Meaning: 27
• 152 Is a Level of Semantic Representation Necessary?: 29
• 153 Lexical Decompositions and the Description of Entailments: 31
• 154 Decomposition and Structuralism: 32
• 155 Possible Word Meanings in Natural Language: 33
• Notes: 36
• THE SEMANTICS OF ASPECTUAL CLASSES OF VERBS IN ENGLISH: 37
• 21 The Development of Decomposition Analysis in Generative Semantics: 38
• 212 Causative and Inchoatives in Lakoffs Dissertation: 40
• 213 McCawley s PostTransformational Lexical Insertion: 43
• 214 Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Evidence for Decomposition: 45
• 215 The Place of Lexical Insertion Transformations in a GS Derivation: 47
• 22 The AristotleRyleKennyVendler Verb Classification: 51
• 221 The Development of the Verb Classification: 52
• 222 States and Activities: 55
• 223 Activities and Accomplishments: 56
• 224 Achievements: 58
• 225 Lexical Ambiguity: 60
• 226 The Problem of Indefinite Plurals and Mass Nouns: 62
• 227 Examples of the Four Vendler Categories in Syntactic and Semantic Subcategories: 65
• 23 An Aspect Calculus: 71
• 232 Statives von Wrights Logic of Change and BECOME: 73
• 233 A Semantic Solution to the Problem of Indefinites and Mass Nouns: 78
• 234 Carlsons Treatment of Bare Plurals: 83
• 235 DegreeAchievements: 88
• 236 Accomplishments and CAUSE: 91
• 237 CAUSE and Lewis Analysis of Causation: 99
• 238 DO Agency and Activity Verbs: 112
• 239 The Semantics of DO: 119
• 2310 DO in Accomplishments: 122
• 2311 Summary of the Aspect Calculus: 124
• 24 The Aspect Calculus as Restricting Possible Word Meanings: 127
• Notes: 131
• INTERVAL SEMANTICS AND THE PROGRESSIVE TENSE: 135
• 32 Truth Conditions Relative to Intervals not Moments: 140
• 33 Revised Truth Conditions for BECOME: 141
• 34 Truth Conditions for the Progressive: 147
• 35 Motivating the Progressive Analysis Independently of Accomplishment Sentences: 152
• 37 Extending the Analysis to the Futurate Progressive: 156
• 38 Another Look at the Vendler Classification in an IntervalBased Semantics: 165
• 382 Stative Verbs in the Progressive Tense: 175
• 383 A Revised Verb Classification: 182
• 384 Accomplishments with EventObjects: 188
• Notes: 189
• LEXICAL DECOMPOSITION IN MONTAGUE GRAMMAR: 195
• Lambda Abstraction vs Predicate Raising: 202
• 43 Morphologically Derived Causatives and Inchoatives: 208
• 44 Prepositional Phrase Accomplishments: 209
• 45 Accomplishments with Two Prepositional: 215
• 46 Prepositional Phrase Adjuncts vs Prepositional Phrase Complements: 218
• 47 Factitive Constructions: 221
• 48 Periphrastic Causatives: 227
• 49 ByPhrases in Accomplishment Sentences: 229
• 410 Causative Constructions in Other Languages: 231
• Notes: 234
• LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE TWO STRATEGIES OF LEXICAL DECOMPOSITION: 237
• 52 Arguments that Familiar Transformations Also Apply PreLexically: 240
• 53 Pronominalization of Parts of Lexical Items: 242
• 54 Scope Ambiguities with Almost: 243
• HaveDeletion Cases: 246
• Accomplishment Cases: 252
• 57 Arguments from RE and Reversative UN: 258
• 58 Accommodating the Adverb Scope Data in a PTQ Grammar: 262
• 582 Treating the Adverb as Ambiguous: 266
• 583 Accommodating the HaveDeletion Cases: 271
• 59 Overpredictions of the Generative Semantics Hypothesis: 273
• 592 Adverb Raising Operator Raising: 277
• 594 Quantifier Lowering and Carlsons Analysis of Bare Plurals: 282
• 510 Concluding Evaluation: 284
• Notes: 287
• THE SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS OF WORD FORMATION LEXICAL RULES: 296
• 61 Montagues Program and Lexical Rules: 298
• 62 A Lexical Component For a Montague Grammar: 300
• 63 Lexical Rules and Morphology: 303
• 64 Lexical Rules and Syntax: 307
• 65 Examples of Lexical Rules: 309
• 66 Problems for Research in the Pragmatics and in the Semantics of Word Formation: 311
• Notes: 321
• THE SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS OF TENSE AND TIME ADVERBIALS IN ENGLISH AN ENGLISH FRAGMENT: 324
• 71 The Syncategorematic Nature of TenseTime Adverbial Interaction: 325
• 72 Rules for Main Tense Adverbials: 327
• For an Hour and In an Hour: 334
• 74 The Syntactic Structure of the Auxiliary: 338
• 75 The Present Perfect: 341
• 76 Negation: 350
• 77 An English Fragment: 352
• 771 Basic ModelTheoretic Definitions: 353
• 772 The Syntax and Interpretation of the Translation Language: 354
• 773 The Syntax and Translation of English: 356
• 774 Lexical Rules: 362
• 775 Lexicon: 363
• 776 Examples: 370
• Notes: 373
• INTENSIONS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY: 377
• Notes: 396
• References: 398
• Index: 411

Bibliographic information

• Title: Word Meaning and Montague Grammar: The Semantics of Verbs and Times in Generative Semantics and in Montague's PTQ; Volume 7 of Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
• Author: D. R. Dowty
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media, 1979
• ISBN: 9027710082, 9789027710086
• Length: 418 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative; Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Semantics; Philosophy / Language; Philosophy / Reference