SENTENCE SEMANTICS 1: SITUATION

A. Classifying Situations
a. Introduction
languages allow speakers to classify situations by using semantic distinctions of
situation type, tense, and aspect. Then we look at how the system of mood allows
speakers to adopt differing attitudes toward the factuality of their sentences; and how
evidentiality systems allow them to identify the source of their belief. Each of these
are sentence-level semantic systems which enable speakers to organize descriptions of
situations.

There are three important dimensions to the task of classifying a situation in order to
talk about it. Namely, situation type, tense, and aspect.
Situation type, is a label for the typology of situations encoded in the semantics of a
language. For example, languages commonly allow speakers to describe a situation
whether as static or dynamic
Static
Unchanging or stable situation, describe states or particular condition
 Robert loves pizza.
 Mary knows the way to San Jose
In describing those sentences the speaker gives no information about the internal
structure of the situation: it just holds for a certain time, unspecified in the above
examples.
Dynamic
Change over time, describe process and events
 Robert grew very quickly.
 Mary is driving to San Jose.
These sentences describe dynamic situations. They imply that the action has subparts:
Robert passed through several sizes and Mary is driving through various places on the
way to San Jose.
In English, for example, adjectives are typically used for states and verbs for
dynamic situations.
 Compare the states in the examples below with the dynamic situations in the b
sentences:
a) The pears are ripe (static)
b) The pears ripened (dynamic)

a) The theatre is full (static)

b) The theatre filled up. (dynamic)
b. Verbs and Situation Types
Static Verbs
There are a number of stative verbs like be, have, remain, know, love that can be
used to describe states. These verbs allow the speaker to view a situation as a steady
state, with no internal phases or changes.
 The file is in the computer.
 Ann has red hair.
 You know the answer.
 The amendment remains in force.
 Jenny loves to ski.

Moreover, the speaker does not overtly focus on the beginning or end of the state.
Even if the speaker uses a stative in the past, for example:

a. Mary loved to drive sports cars (static)

b. Mary learned to drive sports cars (dynamic)

No attention is directed to the end of the state (a). We do not know if or how the state
ended: whether Mary’s tastes changed, or she herself is no longer around. All we are
told is that the relationship described between Mary and sports cars existed for a
while. We can contrast this with a sentence like (b) below, containing a dynamic verb
like learn: Here the speaker is describing a process and focusing on the end point: at
the beginning Mary didn’t know how to drive sports cars, and at the end she has
learned. The process has a conclusion.

We can contrast the stative as non-stative uses of have and remain, for example, by
looking at how they interact with the progressive
  The answer is remaining the same: no
 I am having a car

Dynamic Verbs
Dynamic verbs can be classified into a number of types, based on the semantic
distinctions durative/punctual and telic/atelic, which we will discuss below. The
first distinction is between durative and punctual: durative is applied to verbs that
describe a situation or process which lasts for a period of time, while punctual
describes an event that seems very quick that it involves almost no time.
 John coughed. (punctual)
 John slept. (durative)
What matters of course is not how much time an actual cough takes but that the
typical cough is so short that conventionally speakers do not focus on the internal
structure of the event.
In Slavic linguistics (are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic
peoples and their descendants: Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian to the east; Polish,
Czech, and Slovak to the west) the equivalent of verbs like cough are called
semelfactive verbs, after the Latin word semel, “once.” This term is adopted for
general use by C. S. Smith (1991), Verkuyl (1993), and other writers. Other
semelfactive verbs in English would include flash, shoot, knock, sneeze and blink.
One interesting fact is that in English an interaction between a semelfactive verb and a
durative adverbial can trigger an iterative interpretation, that is where the event is
assumed to be repeated for the specified period, for example:
 Fred coughed all night.
 The drunk knocked for ten minutes.
The second distinction is between telic/bounded and atelic/unbounded. Telic refers
to those processes that are seen as having a natural completion or having an end
meanwhile atelic means endless.
 Harry was singing songs. (atelic – can continue indefinitely)
 Harry was singing a song. (telic – his process will be over)
c. System of Situation Types

According to Vendler (1967) there are four kinds of situations, together with some
English verbs and verb phrases exemplifying how the inherent semantic distinctions
map into a system of situation types.
a. States; desire, want, love, hate, know, believe
b. Activities (unbounded processes); run, walk, swim, push a cart, drive a car
c. Accomplishments (bounded processes); run a mile, draw a circle, walk to school,
paint a picture, grow up, deliver a sermon, recover from illness
d. Achievements (point events); recognize, find, stop, start, reach the top, win the
race, spot someone
Smith (1991), building on Vendler’s system, adds the situation type semelfactive,
e. Semelfactives; knock, cough, sneeze
She identifies three semantic categories or features: [stative], [telic], and [duration],
with roughly the characteristics we have already described, and uses these to classify
five situation types, as follows (1991: 30):

 Examples of each situation type, as follows:

 She hated ice cream. (State)
 Your cat watched those birds. (Activity)
 Her boss learned Japanese. (Accomplishment)
 The gate banged. (Semelfactive)
 The cease-fire began at noon yesterday. (Achievement)

d. Tests for Situation Types

These tests are helpful in identifying typical uses to help decide which type a clause
belongs to.
Statives
 The progressive verb form, can be used as a test for statives, only non-statives
occur in the progressive, so that the stative “I am knowing Swahili” is
ungrammatical. We noted though that some verbs like English have include
 both stative and non-stative senses so care is needed distinguishing these.
Similarly, the dynamism of the progressive, discussed below, is sometimes
used to give dynamic senses to a stative verb, as in I’m loving it, The answer
is remaining the same: no, I am having a car.
 Imperative verb forms also provide a negative test, only non-statives occur as
imperatives, so that Know Swahili! is not appropriate.
 Simple present verb forms can be used as a test since they refer to the current
time of speaking with statives but have a habitual reading with non-statives, as
in the examples below:
a. Isabel knows Cannes.
b. Isabel visits Cannes
Sentence b cannot be used to mean that Isabel is visiting Cannes now. Again
special uses can provide counterexamples to this test as when the simple
present is used in forms of narrative, such as jokes, An elephant goes into a
bar…, or sports commentary, He shoots and scores!

Duratives
Dowty (1979) suggests using different types of temporal adverbial expressions as
tests for activity, accomplishment, and achievement situation types. These tests work
best using sentences with simple past tense forms.
The temporal adverbial in (a period) only occurs with telic situation types and so
distinguishes between the telic achievement and the atelic activity.
 They reached the school in half an hour. (Telic-Achievement)
 They played cards in half an hour. (Atelic-Activity)
The durational time adverbial for (a period) does not occur with telic situation
types, so distinguishes between the atelic activity and the telic achievement.
 They played cards for half an hour. (Atelic-Activity)
 They reached the school for half an hour. (Telic-Achievement)
The test with finish for statives in fact picks out situation types that are durative and
telic. Thus, finish naturally occurs with accomplishments, but not with activities
(which are not telic) or achievements (which are not durative)
 Joan finished fixing the car. (Accomplishment)
 Joan finished fixing cars. (Activity)
 Joan finished recognizing her old boss. (Achievement)
Dowty (1979) also proposed a test using the adverb almost. When an accomplishment
is modified by almost, it has two readings: one where the described event has
occurred but not been completed and one where it has not occurred at all.
 John almost wrote a novel.
In this example almost can refer to the whole process or just the end point.
 John almost played. (Activity)
 John almost noticed the mistake. (Achievement)