Download Abstract and concrete states, events and tropes

States, Events, and Tropes: A More Fundamental Distinction than Generally Thought
Friederike Moltmann, IHPST (Paris1/ENS/CNRS)
In this talk I will argue for the semantic parallelism of states, events and tropes as implicit
arguments of stative predicates, eventive verbs, and adjectives as well as referents of at least
certain of the corresponding nominalizations. At the same time I will argue that the three
categories of entities, as natural language makes use of them, are ontologically more distinct than
usually recognized, differences that concern the ‘abstractness’ of the entities in question. I will
suggest an ontological account that will explain those differences. Despite the fundamental
ontological distinction among the three kinds of entities, I argue that there are systematic
ontological operations that natural language makes use of that allow mapping tropes to states,
tropes to events, events to states, and events to tropes, for the very same situations, involving the
very same things going on in the actual world. These operations moreover are tied to particular
constructions.
I will start by giving further support for and a further elaboration of Maienborn’s (2007)
distinction between concrete (‘Davidsonian’) and abstract (‘Kimian’) states. Maienborn (2007)
argued, against Katz (2003), that stative verbs always take a state argument, and that with many
verbs(know, own, weigh, be + adjective) this state is an abstract state, in roughly the sense of
Kim’s account of events as fact-like (‘property exemplifications’). Abstract states in that sense, I
suggest, can be viewed as obtained by (roughly Fregean) abstraction from an individual (or a
number of individuals) and a concept or condition: such a state will then obtain temporal
properties on the basis of the concept holding of the individuals at particular times, but such a
state is by nature not spatially located, nor does it involve a particular manifestation that would
allow for manner adverbials. Also abstract states, not being ‘in’ the world, but ‘at’ the world (to
use Strawson’s term), could not be the objects of perception and relata of causal relations, but
only the objects of other cognitive attitudes and relata of relations causal explanation. This view
receives linguistic support from the possibility of suitable (nontemporal) modifiers for abstract
state verbs as well as philosophical support from philosophy of mind, such as Steward’ (1997)
distinction between mental states (abstract, description-driven) and mental events (concrete,
description-independent). While Maienborn does not tell what the ‘property’ is that abstract
states exemplify, it is easy to see that it could not be the property that the verb itself expresses
(and thus that the state is indeed best viewed as an argument of the verb, rather than as a result of
‘semantic nominalization’). The abstract states may be obtained from a variety of (‘nonnatural’)
conditions involved in the meaning of an abstract state verb, such as a measure function (weigh,
perhaps even know and believe on a measurement theory of attitudes) or legal conditions (own),
conditions that would by nature not allow for different manifestations. I will also follow
Maienborn in taking certain stative verbs (lie, stand, sit, sleep etc) to take concrete states as
arguments, states that allow for manner modification , can be the object of perception in naked
infinitive constructions, and are spatially located.
Given the distinction between concrete and abstract states, the question is, does natural language
display a parallel distinction between concrete and abstract events? The answer is clearly no, and
not just because of the common observation that eventive predicates generally do allow for
location modifiers (this might just be because such predicates happen to have a sufficiently
‘concrete’ content). There is evidence that the lack of abstract events is more fundamental. There
are two cases of eventive and stative predicates that are hardly distinguished in qualitative
content, but where the eventive predicate can describe only a concrete event, whereas the stative
predicate can describe only an abstract state. The first case involves copula verbs. Maienborn
(2007) convincingly argued that be+adjective always describes an abstract state, not allowing
location or manner modifiers (on a reading not involving coercion). Now the crucial observation
is that become+adjective does allow for location modifiers. Whereas (1a) and (2a) are
unacceptable on a normal reading, (1b) and (2b) are perfectly fine:
(1) a. ?? Mary is hungry in front of the refrigerator.
b. Mary became hungry in front of the refrigerator.
(2) a. ?? Mary was ill in the house.
b. Mary became ill in the house.
The second case is existence predicates. Exist, which can apply only to perduring objects, but not
to events, arguably has a specific lexical content on which it locates an object (as a whole) at
each instant of its lifespan. This condition corresponds to an abstract state, which is reflected in
the impossibility of location modifiers with exist (with a singular term as subject):
(3) a. The president of France exists (* in Paris).
The existence predicate occur can apply only to events (entities that, unlike perduring objects,
can have temporal parts) and thus arguably describes the transition from temporal event parts
being at some suitable interval to other temporal parts being at subsequent subinitervals. While
occur has thus as ‘thin’ or nonqualitative a lexical content as exist, occur clearly describes
events, not states, and in fact it allows for spatial modifiers:
(3) b. The event occurred in Paris.
Why are events concrete (in space and time) and cannot be abstract (not in space), like states? I
will propose that this is because events are transitions between states, and transitions, which are
relations ‘in’ the world, can obtain only among concrete states, not abstract states.
Tropes are an ontological category that is in between events and abstract states in abstractness, or
so natural language tells us. Tropes as arguments of adjectives allow for modifiers that would
qualify them as concrete (modifiers of manner, intensity, perceivability, causal efficaciousness,
Moltmann 2009). However, tropes, contrary to what contemporary trope theorists assume, are
actually not spatially locatable (??? the chair’s redness / roundness over there; ?? John’s
happiness was in France). This motivates a nonstandard conception of tropes as entities
ontologically dependent on a bearer, but that have no spatial extension and no location. A trope,
however, can be mapped onto an event as well as a state, and not just an abstract state, but also
more derivatively a concrete state, if concrete states are viewed as (quasi-mereological)
compositions from individuals and tropes (the individual then provides the spatial location of the
state). An abstract state (‘be hungry’) can be abstracted from the formal relation of bearerhood
that holds between an object and a trope; an event (‘become hungry’) can be obtained by first
composing (at least) two concrete states, one composed of an individual and features
incompatible with the trope, and one composed of the individual and the trope in question. Such
mapping is possible even with respect to one and the same actual situation. Thus if the adjective
active takes a trope t as argument, t can be mapped onto the state described by be active (which
requires simply bearerhood obtaining between the bearer of t and t); t, moreover can be mapped
onto transitions among concrete states, the event argument of to act.
Some references
G. Katz (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.