Aspectual Requirements of Temporal Connectives: Evidence for a Two-Level Approach to Semantics

This paper argues for a two-level theory of semantics as opposed to a one-level theory, based on the example of the system of temporal and durationM connectives. Instead of identifying the semantics of lexical items and larger constituents with conceptual structures, the two-level theory assumes that there is an intra-linguistic level of abstract semantic representations distinct from the extra-linguistic level of conceptual representations. It is argued that the two-level theory can give a more appropriate treatment of polysemy as well as a better account of the conditions under which connectives may (more or less) be felicitously combined with complement expressions which do not respect tile aspectual requirements of the connectives. 1 Semantic Representations and Conceptual Representations This paper addresses a specific question in the theory of natural language semantics with the example of a specific lexical domain. The question is whether one should opt for a one-level or a two-level theory of semantic interpretation. The lexical domain is the system of temporal and durational connectives such as after, before, while, when, as soon as, since, until and as long as (or rather their German equivalents). The one-level theory, which is the predominant one in cognitive and computational linguistics, considers semantic representations to be part of the conceptual system. Syntactic representations are directly mapped onto conceptual structures, with no separate, intra-linguistic semantic level mediating between the two kinds of representation (see, e.g., [12] and many others). As a consequence, there is no distinction in principle between genuine linguistic knowledge about meanings and extra-linguistic, conceptually encoded knowledge. The two-level theory of semantic interpretation (see, e.g., [3, 8, 13]) claims that the interpretation of a linguistic expression in a particular context of use involves the construction of a conceptual representation constrained by the semantic representation of the expression. Semantic and conceptual representations are distinct levels of mental representation which are governed by the principles of two separate cognitive modules, the systems of grammatical and conceptual knowledge, respectively. Semantic representations are structured configurations of semantic units which, on the one hand, are determined by the grammatical system of the language in question and, on the other hand, are grounded