Open AccessCompositional states
Author(s) -
E. Matthew Husband
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
proceedings from semantics and linguistic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-5951
pISSN - 2163-5943
DOI - 10.3765/salt.v20i0.2548
Subject(s) - transitive relation , predicate (mathematical logic) , existentialism , linguistics , object (grammar) , homogeneous , computer science , subject (documents) , mathematics , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , epistemology , programming language , philosophy , combinatorics , library science
Whether a transitive stative predicate licenses an existential interpretaiton of its subject (EIS) depends on the type of object it has. While previous theories have related this to the object's ability to function as a topic, I present evidence that the quantized/homogeneous distinction between objects better captures EIS and propose an event composition analysis of EIS for transitive stative predicates. This analysis points to the aspectual nature of EIS and also illuminates other aspectual behaviors of stage-level/individual-level states.