“Verbs: aspect and causal structure” presents a model of event structure for the analysis of aspectual constructions and argument structure constructions in English and other languages. The central proposal is that the aspectual and causal structure of events should be clearly distinguished in their semantic representation, since each dimension makes a distinct contribution to the structure of grammatical constructions. In addition, aspect - the unfolding of events over time - must itself be analyzed in two dimensions, namely time and the qualitative states that an event enters or maintains ov ... More

“Verbs: aspect and causal structure” presents a model of event structure for the analysis of aspectual constructions and argument structure constructions in English and other languages. The central proposal is that the aspectual and causal structure of events should be clearly distinguished in their semantic representation, since each dimension makes a distinct contribution to the structure of grammatical constructions. In addition, aspect - the unfolding of events over time - must itself be analyzed in two dimensions, namely time and the qualitative states that an event enters or maintains over time. This geometric model of aspectual representation allows for a fine-grained and systematic analysis of aspectual types and their grammatical manifestation. The third dimension of event structure is the causal chain, the central semantic factor in argument realization. The aspectual and causal structures are integrated into a single model in which each participant in an event is represented by its own subevent, describing what that participant does (or has happen to it) as the event unfolds. The integrated event structure model is then used to analyze the types of events that are typically expressed in single verb constructions, with comparisons to selected complex predicate constructions such as resultative, depictive, converb and serial verb constructions.