MoL-2005-01: `binyanim ba'avir': An investigation of Aspect Semantics in Modern Hebrew

MoL-2005-01: Tsarfaty, Reut (2005) `binyanim ba'avir': An investigation of Aspect Semantics in Modern Hebrew. [Report]

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Abstract

`binyanim ba'avir'
An investigation of Aspect Semantics in Modern Hebrew
Reut Tsarfaty

Abstract:
This thesis summarizes an attempt to decompose `Hebrew aspect' and
construct aspectual meanings by virtue of the semantic contributions
of morphological templates.

The proposed account is not the only possible answer to these
questions, and by no means is this the end of the story. A different
way in which this thesis can be thought of is as an attempt to `break'
traditional associative relations and encourage considering new ones.

In the Hebrew linguistic arena, I argue against the `Hebrew aspect
equals lexical aspect' equation. By this I hope to have encouraged a
doubled-dimension investigation of Hebrew aspect as proposed by
general linguistic theory and reflected typologically in many other
language. Alongside these aspectual claims I attempted to show
supporting evidence for a stronger connection between the
contributions of morphological templates and the meanings of verbs
derived from them.

In the general linguistic arena, I advocate stronger (bi-directional)
relations between semantic properties of events and the thematic roles
of their participants. Also, I suggest a weaker connection between
`resulting change of state' and an event's `telicity'. These
suggestions have been explored before (in [10] and [55] respectively),
however, I believe that the results of this work provide supporting
evidence for these directions of investigation.

In a cross-linguistic arena, I suggest that the contribution of
specific constructions in different languages (not necessarily
`grammatical tenses') might have ramifications for an aspectual
investigation. An example for this is the suggestion to re-examine the
connection between causative constructions and event structure as
evident in the discussion of the causative template Hiphil (section
6.3). A crosslinguistic investigation of causative constructions may
shed some more light on this matter.

Finally, I hope to have exemplified the importance of a parallel
empirical evaluation of a theoretical investigation of linguistic
forms by means of identifying patterns of real language use and
possible developmental trends in the functions these linguistic forms
are meant to serve. Such a parallel investigation is more likely to
yield successful results with respect to linguistic adequacy as well
as cognitive plausibility of the proposed account.

Item Type:	Report
Report Nr:	MoL-2005-01
Series Name:	Master of Logic Thesis (MoL) Series
Year:	2005
Date Deposited:	12 Oct 2016 14:38
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2016 14:38
URI:	https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/755

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