On the aspectual interactions between verbs and noun phrases

In this paper a formal analysis of the aspectual interactions between the verb and the noun phrases (Nps) of simple sentences will be introduced. It is not my purpose to go into detail. Rather, all the concepts will be introduced in an intuitive fashion, and the mathematical expressions will be used only for completeness purposes. The approach here developed will be based on lattices, in a way which is very similar to Krifka’s approach in Krifka (1989b). First of all, the problem will be specified in terms of the aspectual distinction between telic and atelic sentences. The influence of the Nps on the final aspectual properties will be shown by means of data examples. Some stress will be put on the fact the Nps may or may not determine the aspectual property of the sentence, depending on our interpretation of the sentence itself. After describing the structure of the world in terms of lattices, tellicity/atelicity will be formally defined as general properties applying to predicates over events. It will be shown how the same or very similar properties may apply to predicates over objects, reinforcing the concept that objects and events are organised into two parallel structures. The link beteween the objects and the events will be established by means of thematic relations. These thematic relations will be formalised here, and some properties applying to them will be also introduced. These properties will establish a three-way classification of the thematic relations, and this classification will be reported to correspond to our interpretation of the sentences in terms of the distributive/collective readings. It will be shown how these properties can explain the aspectual interactions occurring in our data.