Temporality in Bengali: A Syntacto-Semantic Framework Samir Karmakar Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Overview Structure of the Bengali Verb Morphology –Syntactic Categories –Semantic Categories Organizing Syntax and Semantics –Outer Frame of Representation –Inner Frame of Representation The Proposal

Examples: kar-ech-il-o do-perf-past-3 past kar-ch-il-o Do-perf-past-3 past kar-t-Φ-o Do-hab-past-3 past kar-ch-Φ-I Do-impf-pres-1 pres kar-Φ-b-o do-?-fut-1 fut Structure of Bengali Verb Morphology Verb – aspect – tense i - person i

Syntactic and Semantic Categories Syntactic Categories: –Verb –Aspect Perfect (-ech-) Imperfect (-ch-) Habitual (-t-) –Tense Past (-il-) Present (-Φ-) Future (-b-) –Person First Second Third Semantic Categories: –Situation Type –Viewpoint Boundary Continuity –Temporal Location Frame of Reference: now Proximity: [ ± Overlap ] Direction: [ ± Precedence ]

Organizing Syntactic and Semantic Information Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995) –[XP Spec(…), [X' Head(X), Comp(…)]] Semantics of Tense and Aspect –Reichenbachian Proposal (1947) Semantics of Verbs –Situation Types (Vendler 1957; Dowty 1979)

Semantics of Tense and Aspect First Referencing (S-R relation) Second Referencing (E-R relation) Relations (Overlap, Precedence)

Taxonomy of Situation & Situation Internal Structure TypesDefinition StateV n (a 1,…,a n ) ActivityDO(a 1, V n (a 1,…,a n )) AccomplishmentDO(a 1, V n (a 1,…,a n )) CAUSE(BECOME(V n (a 1,…,a n ))) AchievementBECOME(V n (a 1,…,a n ))

Proposed Framework

Constraint imposed by adjuncts 1panerominiT-egey-ech-il-o fifteenminute-partsing-perf-past-3 past (s)he had sung (the song) in fifteen minutes 2*panerominiT-egAc-ch-il-o fifteenminute-partsing-impf-past-3 past *(s)he was singing (the song) in fifteen minutes 3panerominiTdhar-egAc-ch-il-o fifteenminutehold-partsing-impf-past-3 past !(s)he was singing (the song) for fifteen minutes 4panerominiTdhar-egey-ech-il-o fifteenminutehold-partsing-perf-past-3 past !(s)he had sung (the song) for fifteen minutes

VP-internal Aspect VP AspP Situation Type Adjunct Type

References Arche, M.J. (2006). Individuals in Time: Tense, Aspect and the Individual/Stage Distinction, Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing Co. Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Dowty, D. (1979). Word Meaning and Montague Grammar, Reidel: Dordrecht. Reichenbach, H. (1947). Elements of Symbolic Logic, New York: The Free Press. Vendler, Z. (1957). Verbs and Times. The Philosophical Review, Vol. LXVI, Verkuyl, H. (1989). Aspectual Classes and Aspectual Composition. Linguistics and Philosophy, Vol. 12, Verkuyl, H (1993). The Theory of Aspectuality: The Interaction between Temporal and Atemporal Structures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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