Download Handout - Genericity: Interpretation and Uses

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Workshop on Dispositions, Abilities, and States
Paris, June 24, 2010
Abstract and Concrete States, Events, and Tropes
Friederike Moltmann
IHPST (Paris 1/ENS/CNRS)
fmoltmann@univ-paris
1. Goals and theses
[1] defense and elaboration of Maienborn’s distinction between abstract (‘Kimian’) states and
concrete (‘Davidsonian’) states
[2] semantic parallelism between events, states, and tropes
- Events, states and tropes act as implicit arguments of eventive verbs, stative verbs, and
adjectives (or else they as truth makers of sentences in which such categories of expressions
act as predicates).
- Modifiers of verbs or of adjectives act as predicates of events, states, or tropes
[3] Events and (abstract) states are more distinct than usually thought
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Maienborn’s distinction between abstract (Kimian) and concrete (Davidsonian) states
The ‘Stative Adverb Gap’:
Stative verbs do not allow for location modifiers, manner adverbials, instrumentals,
comitatives (Katz 2003, Maienborn 2007).
(1) a. ?? John is hungry in front of the refrigerator.
b. ?? John was ill in this room.
no manner modifiers:
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(2) ?? John knows French in an unusual way.
no instrumentals, comitatives:
(3) a. ?? John owns the house with Mary.
b. ?? John resembles his father with a hat.
no infinitival complements of perception verbs:
(4) a. ?? Mary saw John resemble his father.
b. ?? Mary heard John know French.
One kind of approach:
Stative verbs lack Davidsonian event arguments (Katz 2003)
States do not act as Davidsonian event arguments, but act as referents of nominalizations:
gerunds; states are obtained, by ‘semantic nominalization’, from the content of the verb and
its arguments
Maienborn (2007):
Distinguish concrete states (‘Davidsonian’ states) from abstract states (‘Kimian’ states):
abstract state verbs: believe, know, weigh, resemble, own be+adjective
concrete state verbs: sit, stand, sleep
- do not display the stative adverb gap:
location modifiers:
(5) John stood at the window.
manner modifiers:
(6) John was sleeping in an unusual way.
instrumentals, comitatives:
(7) a. John was sitting with Mary.
b. John was sleeping with a pillow.
naked infinitive complements of perception verbs:
(8) Mary saw John sleep / stand in the corner / sit on the bench.
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Kim’s account of events:
(9) a. For a property P, an object o, and a time t,
the event f(P, o, t) exists iff P holds of o at t.
b. For events f(P, o, t), and f(P’, o’, t’), f(P, o, t) = f(P’, o’, t’) iff P = P’, o = o’, t = t’.
the nature of the account:
Events obtained by (quasi-Fregean) abstraction:
- they are not composed of a property object and time, but rather their existence and identity
conditions are formulated in terms of them
- all the (nonattitudinal) properties that events so introduced can have are properties derivable
from the existence and identity conditions.
general agreement about Kim’s account:
The account defines facts, not events.
Kim’s account extended to states:
states not obtained from a time, but only from a property and an object:
(10) a. For a property P, an object o,
the state s(P, o) obtains at a time t iff P holds of o at t.
b. For states s(P, o), and s(P’, o’, t’), s(P, o, t) = s(P’, o’, t’) iff P = P’, o = o’, t = t’.
c. A state s(P, o) obtains at a time t iff P holds of o at t.
consequence: states will have temporal properties; but no spatial properties expected, no
particular manifestations etc
parallel between states and facts: both ‘obtain’, whereas events ‘occur’.
explaining the stative adverb gap:
Abstract states are introduced without specification of location properties, though with
properties of temporal duration.
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An issue with using Kim’s account for abstract states:
It cannot the property expressed by the predicate that defines the abstract state (otherwise
circularity). Rather it is some property or relation associated with the content of the verb by
which the abstract state is introduced.
The range of abstract state verbs
[1] mental state verbs
know, believe, assume
Helen Steward (‘The Ontology of the Mind’):
Mental states are abstract, transparently given by the content of a canonical description (and
thus mental states could not possibly be physical states).
Mental events are concrete in the sense that they lack a canonical description (and thus mental
events can be identical to physical events).
Mental events enter causal relations; mental states enter only relations of causal explanation.
[2] verbs of measurement
weigh, measure, ..
What is special about measurement? Not a ‘natural’ relation, but stipulated mapping onto
(ordered) objects of measurement, to reflect relations amount actual objects
States of measuring are inherently abstract, do not come with different manifestation, not in
space, not perceivable
[3] verbs of possession
similar to measurement:
legal, ‘artificial’ relation, do not come with particular manifestations
Arguments in favor of abstract state arguments:
- modifiers of causal explanation: because of NP
- attitudinal (nonpeceptual) modifiers: unexpectedly etc
- anaphoric reference (Maienborn):
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(11) John owns the house. This surprised me / This will not last.
In all cases so far:
abstract states individuated by relations / functions more basic than the concept expressed by
the verb.
a different case:
[ 4] copula verbs
Maienborn:
Be + adjective is an abstract state predicate:
no location modifiers:
(12) a. ?? John was hungry in front of the refrigerator.
b. John was intelligent / happy / ill in the room.
no manner adverbials etc:
(13) a. ?? John was hungry quietly.
b. ?? John was sad profoundly.
c. ?? John was nervous strangely.
unlike adjectives themselves (which are predicates of tropes)
cannot act as naked infinitival complements:
(14) ?? I saw John be nervous / hungry / sad.
By contrast, adjective nominalizations could act as complements of perception verbs:
(15) I noticed / saw John’s nervousness.
Explanation: adjective nominalizations refer to tropes, tropes are (generally) concrete.
What kind of abstract state would be-ADJ predicates describe?
Assumption: adjectives take tropes as arguments
Thus copula be when taking an adjective complement should describe a state of being bearer
of some trope that is argument of the adjective
(21) For a state e, an individual d, and a trope a, be(e, d, a) iff e = f(B, d, a)
B: the bearer relation between an individual and a trope
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. The concreteness of events
General observation: no ‘eventive’ adverb gap
Events, regardless or the lexical content of the predicate count as concrete !
Two cases of minimal differences
[1] be + adjective vs. become + adjective
[2] existence predicates (exist vs. occur, take place, happen)
3.1. copula verbs
The copula verb become takes an event argument.
important:
the event argument of become shows all the features of concreteness:
spatial location:
(16) a. Mary became hungry in front of the refrigerator.
b. Mary became nervous in the cellar.
c. Mary became ill in the car.
manner adverbials:
(17) Mary became ill in a strange way.
perception verbs:
(18) a. John saw Mary become ill.
b. I saw John become very nervous.
Why should the event argument of become be concrete rather than abstract?
Answer: ‘Fregean’ abstraction cannot yield concrete entities, involving particular descriptionindependent manifestations
Events must involve transition between concrete states (composed of individuals and tropes);
the transition relation cannot apply to abstract states
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‘concretization’ function: mapping a trope onto a concrete state, composed of the trope and its
bearer
events of becoming nervous:
transitions from a concrete state consisting of individual bearer and features incompatible
with nervousness to a concrete state consisting of individual bearer and the feature of
nervousness
3.2. predicates of existence
exist as a predicate:
(19) a. The French president exists.
b. The king of France does not exist.
c. White gold exists.
exist :
- restricted to ‘enduring’ objects,
- can also apply to abstract objects (mathematical objects),
- cannot apply to events, not so good with facts, possibilities
occur, take place: apply to events only
obtain: applies to facts and states (!)
states and events of existence
Existence as a state:
nominalization:
(20) the existence of the building
Existence as an abstract state:
- temporal modifiers:
(21) a. This building has existed for at least ten years.
b. Mao does not exist anymore.
- does not take location modifiers:
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(22) a. * The French president exists in France.
b. * The book exists in the other room.
c. * Mao does not exist in China anymore.
exception: exist with bare plurals and mass nouns:
(23) Pure air does not exist in China anymore.
(presumably a case of an instance-distribution predicate, like widespread, disappear)
- does not take manner adverbials
(24) a. ?? The president of Italy exists in a flamboyant way.
b. ?? The building exists unnoticed.
Occurrences as events:
Existence predicates for events, occur, take place, and happen, are eventive verbs:
allow for the progressive:
(25) The protest is taking place / is happening / is occurring right now.
The meaning of exist and occur, first approximation:
(26) a. For a world w, an entity x that cannot have temporal parts, and an interval t, <e, x> 
[exist]w,t iff e consists in the presence of (the whole of) x in w at t’ for any subinterval
t’ of t.
b. For a world w, an entity e that can have temporal parts, and an interval t,
<e, e’>  [occur]w,t iff e consists of transitions from the presence of e’’ in w at t to
the presence of e’’’ in w at t’’ for any minimal parts e’ and e’’ of e for which there are
subsequent subintervals t’ and t’’ at which e’ and e’’ take place.
Occurrences as concrete events:
occur, take place, and happen do not the same modifiers as the original event:
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no instrumentals or comitatives:
(27) a. The victim was murdered with an axe.
b. The murder was done with an axe.
c. ?? The murder occurred with an axe.
(28) a. John murdered the victim with Mary.
b. The murder was done with Mary.
c. ?? The murder took place with Mary.
But ‘occurrences’ exhibit other features of concreteness:
- location modifiers:
(29) The murder occurred in the kitchen.
- manner adverbials:
(30) a. The demonstration took place in a strange way.
b. ? The car accident occurred in a very unusual way
- infinitival complements of perception verbs:
(31) John saw the murder occur with his own eyes
generalization:
‘Occurrences’ lose qualitative features of the original event, but they are still events, that is,
concrete entities that are in space and time.
Occurrences are transitions from compositions of participants and fewer tropes to other such
less qualitative states
the concreteness of events:
Events are transitions from one state to another, transitions among concrete states.Transition
relation can obtain only among concrete states.
concrete states: composed of individuals and qualitative features at a time (tropes)
qualitatively thick events: transitions among concrete states composed of individuals and
qualitative features
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occurrences:
transitions from compositions of event parts with the temporal feature ‘being at a particular
time’, to other compositions of this sort
take c to be the relevant composition function:
(32) The meaning of occur (revised)
For events e and e’ and a time t, <e, r’>  [occur]t iff e = transit(c(e1, x[AT(x, t1)),
c(e2, x[AT(x, t2)), …) and e1, …, en are relevant temporal parts, with t1, …, tn as
their duration.
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Some References
Katz, G. (2003): ‘Events arguments, adverb selection, and the Stative Adverb Gap’. In E.
Lang eds. (eds.): Modifying Adjuncts, de Gruyter.
Maienborn, C. (2007): ‘On Davidsonian and Kimian States’. In Comorovski et al. (eds.):
Existence: Semantics and Syntax, Springer.
Moltmann, F. (2009): ‘Degree Structure as Trope Structure’. Linguistics and Philosophy 32.
Steward, H. (1997): The Ontology of the Mind. Oxford UP, Oxford.