SGER: The Morphosyntactic Basis of Crosslinguistic Variation in Event Encoding

这项SGER资助将允许探索性研究跨语言的相似性和差异的根源在事件的语言编码。这个项目的出发点是一个假设，即所有语言都以同样的方式将现实世界中的一系列事件解释为事件。如果是这样，事件表达方式的跨语言差异是“肤浅的”：它们应该追溯到语言编码特定事件表示时可用的形态句法和词汇资源的差异。也就是说，一般来说，跨语言差异不应该像有时提出的那样，由于语言如何将世界上潜在的事件解释为事件的差异而产生。然而，如果一种语言缺乏允许特定事件表达所需的形态句法设备，它可能会利用不同的解释（如果有的话）来表达相同的事件。对这些想法的全面探索包括两个部分的研究计划。首先，它需要确定世界上哪些类型的事件链可以被解释为事件，并确定这些事件的适当语言表示；本课题是事件结构理论的研究范围。其次，它需要揭示用于跨语言编码事件的形态句法和词汇资源的范围，然后将它们与表现它们的语言的类型特征联系起来。这些相关性对于识别被编码的事件类型、被编码的语言的类型学特征以及语言用于编码此类事件组成部分的形态句法设备之间的相互作用至关重要。它们共同决定了如何表达特定的事件结构，或者如何防止特定的事件结构在给定语言中出现。一个全面的跨语言学上可行的事件编码理论的形成，可以建立在先前在词汇语义学和形态句法类型学方面的工作基础上。在这样做的过程中，这个研究项目将把两条基本独立的研究线结合在一起。事件编码的形态句法基础构成了一个很大但尚未开发的领域。这一探索性项目将采取双管齐下的办法。首先，将举行一个小型研讨会，探讨基础问题并讨论进一步研究的有效途径。其次，我们计划扩展早期的定向运动事件的试点案例研究，以便更准确地描述影响事件编码的形态句法和词汇因素。作为本研究的一部分，将设计一个属性数据库，可用于假设探索，并可作为未来研究的模型。这里提出的更大的研究计划应该导致现有类型概括的深化和新类型的发现。它将允许对事件的表示和语法结构的语义决定因素有更精确的理解。通过对语言之间的异同进行澄清和系统化，研究结果应该在第二语言教学法和机器翻译中得到实际应用，这两者都依赖于最好的语言之间关系的理论工作。

This SGER grant will permit exploratory investigations into the roots of crosslinguistic similarities and divergences in the linguistic encoding of events. This project takes as its starting point the hypothesis that chains of happenings in the real world are construed by all languages as events in the same way(s). If so, crosslinguistic differences in the ways that events are expressed are "superficial": they should be traceable to differences in the morphosyntactic and lexical resources available to languages to encode particular event representations. That is, in general crosslinguistic differences should not arise due to differences in how languages construe the underlying happenings in the world as events, as has sometimes been proposed. However, if a language lacks the morphosyntactic device needed to permit a particular event representation to surface, it might avail itself of a different construal, if one is available, to express the same happening.The full-scale exploration of these ideas comprises a two-part research program. First, it requires determining which kinds of chains of happenings in the world may be construed as events and determining the appropriate linguistic representation of these events; this topic is the purview of a theory of event structure. Second, it requires uncovering the range of morphosyntactic and lexical resources used to encode events crosslinguistically and then correlating them with the typological traits of the languages manifesting them. These correlations are essential to the identification of the interactions between the type of event being encoded, the typological traits of the language it is being encoded in, and the morphosyntactic devices the language makes available for encoding the components of such an event. Together these determine how particular event structures are expressed or, possibly, prevented from surfacing in a given language. The formulation of a comprehensive crosslinguistically viable theory of event encoding, then, can build on previous work in lexical semantics and morphosyntactic typology. In so doing, this research program will bring together two lines of largely independent research.The morphosyntactic basis of event encoding constitutes a large but underexplored area. A two-pronged approach will be pursued in this exploratory project. First, a small workshop will be held to explore foundational issues and discuss effective paths for further research. Second, we plan to extend an earlier pilot case study of directed motion events in order to more accurately delineate the morphosyntactic and lexical factors that affect event encoding. As part of this study, a database of properties will be designed that can be used in hypothesis exploration and can serve as a model for future research.The larger research program set out here should lead to the deepening of existing typological generalizations and the discovery of new ones. It will allow a more refined understanding of the representation of events and the semantic determinants of grammatical structure. By clarifying and systematizing similarities and differences between languages, the research results should have practical applications to second language pedagogy and machine translation, both of which rely on the best available theoretical work on the relationships between languages.