Formal Description of Tense and Aspect with Semantic Structures

(1)我们试图解决两个问题：为什么有些致使句暗示它的结果致次事件，而另一些不一定是；根据含义的不同，为什么我们用过去时来判断蕴涵。对于前一个问题，我们将使役动词分为三类，并对每种属性进行了描述。对于后一个问题，我们对时态语素-ta的功能进行了形式化的描述，并提出-ta将其参照时间固定为主语次事件的事件时间。根据心理动词所带的-ni NP和-o NP的分布情况，我们将日语心理动词分为四类。通过分类，我们展示了分布与动词的体属性之间的关系。此外，我们观察到心理动词的体式转换现象，并假设词汇中可能有动词列表上的体词性条目。(3)日语及物动词simeru有几种含义，如Tie、Wring、Shut和Close.我们认为，它的多义性是它的词汇意义和它作为宾语的名词短语相结合的结果。为了形式化地组合，我们使用了动词的词汇概念结构和名词的Qualia结构。(4)我们还试图将我们的观察结果应用到语用和教育领域：我们从时间序列的角度分析了一部现代日剧中的幽默机制，并考察了课堂上发生的一些时间表达的交际空白。

(i)We attempted to solve two problems : why some causative sentences imply its resultant caused subevent while others does not necessarily ; according to the implication differences, why we judge the implication with the past tense. For the former problem, we classified causative verbs into three types and described each property. For the latter problem, we described the function of the tense morpheme -ta formally and proposed that -ta has fixed its reference time to the event time of the headed subevent. Then we showed the relationship between the function of -ta and the implication differences of causatives.(ii)We classified Japanese psych-verbs into four groups based on the distribution of -ni NP and -o NP which each psych-verb takes. With the classification, we showed the relationship between the distribution and the verbs' aspectual properties. Further, we observed the phenomenon of aspect shifts of psych-verbs and hypothesized that lexicon has the possible aspectual entries on the list of a verb.(iii)The Japanese transitive verb simeru has several meanings such as 'tie,'' wring,''shut, ' and 'close.' We claim that the polysemy of simeru is generated from the combination of its lexical meaning and a noun phrase that it takes as its object. To formalize the combination, we use Lexical Conceptual Structure for verbs and Qualia Structure for nouns.(iv)We also tried to apply our observations above to the pragmatic and educational fields : we analyzed the mechanism of humor in a modern Japanese play from the viewpoint of time sequence, and examined some communicational gaps of time expressions occurred in classrooms.