The semantics of anaphoric relations between events

Author(s)

Renato Miguel Basso

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP. , ilustrações.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2009-10-14

Examining board members

Edson Françozo; Rodolfo Ilari; Jose Borges Neto; Ana Lucia de Paula Muller; Sérgio de Moura Menuzzi

• Advisor: Edson Françozo
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Location: Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Biblioteca Central Cesar Lattes; T/UNICAMP; B295s; Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Biblioteca do Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem; T/UNICAMP; B295s

Abstract

In this thesis, we evaluated Davidson's (1967) statement according to which event anaphora and (ordinary) object anaphora use the same linguistic resources. Davidson uses the evidence of anaphora not only to postulate events in the ontology but also as an argument for considering them as ordinary objects (as individuals). However, as we investigate the linguistic mechanisms mobilized in event anaphora and the ones mobilized in (ordinary) object anaphora we found significant differences, a conclusion which compromises Davidson's assumptions about the metaphysics of events. In the first part of this thesis, we present and defend a version of the theory of events postulated by Davidson that treats them as individuals in the same way as other objects. We look briefly at other theories that take events as properties of moments of time and theories that take events as propositional entities. Each of these theories has their merits and problems, but our intention is to follow Davidson's formulation closely, in order to evaluate his claims about anaphora event. We investigate the differences between deixis and anaphora, a theme that involves any discussion of the terms used in anaphora. In the second part, our attention goes to event anaphora when the antecedents are sentential expressions (i.e., that are not DPs). With this kind of antecedent, the preferred anaphoric terms are demonstratives, and we investigate the demonstrative pronoun 'isso' and demonstrative descriptions ('esse / essa / aquele / aquela N'). We present the state-of-the art of the studies of demonstrative, noting that they can be treated as referring or as quantificational expressions. Since the debate is very complex and still in its beginning, we present two analysis of event anaphora with sentential antecedents: one that takes the anaphoric terms as referential, and one that takes them as quantificational. However, despite this difference in the analysis, the result we reached is similar, and it shows that the mechanisms behind the anaphora of events are closer to the anaphora of propositional entities than to the anaphora of ordinary objects, against the Davidsonian thesis. In the third part, we analyze the anaphora of events in which the antecedent is a nominal structure (i.e., DPs); with this kind of antecedent the preferred anaphoric terms are definite and demonstrative descriptions. We also investigate the semantics of nominalizations and their relationship to events conveyed by inflected action verbs. We assume, as is common practice in the literature on events, that sentences with an inflected action verb and their nominalized counterparts have the same logical form. We show that this assumption leads to undesired results when we consider event anaphora. In the conclusion, we point out that adopting the concept of event as an object can not be sustained from the point of view of anaphoric phenomenona, since event anaphora resembles the anaphora of abstract entities such as propositions, and not object anaphora. This conclusion has implications for contemporary semantic theories which naively equate events and objects. (AU)