Abstract
The general concepts of event and state are important to human beings as they manage in the world: they are helpful in recognizing dangerous and benign motion, situations that may result in changes of interest, etc. In the sentences of natural language these concepts are conveyed by four semantic categories proposed in Vendler (1957), known as Accomplishments, Achievements, States, and Activities. It is clear how three of these categories are related to the general concepts: the first two are events, the third are states. The status of the Activity category is less clear. Activities have something in common with each concept. I will argue here that Activities form a natural class with events, however. The argument is based on the behavior of sentences associated with the Activity concept in narrative and other sequential contexts. The keys to the argument are the property of dynamism and the contribution of the perfective viewpoint.
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Notes
- 1.
Whorf (1956) argues persuasively that language has covert categories which have grammatical correlates and are thus indirectly grammaticized. The situation types are covert categories in this sense. Not all languages have all of the categories: in Navajo, for instance, certain distinctions are neutralized.
- 2.
The way situations unfold in time can be seen in a temporal profile which relates the situation to times, or moments of time.
The temporal profile of a dynamic situation differs at successive stages of time. Non-durative, single-stage, situations have only one stage at which something happens: the event takes place. Therefore the temporal profile shows occurrence of the situation at a given moment, with an idealized state of rest at the times before and after. The diagram illustrates (S indicates the single-stage situation):
$$\begin{array}{l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l} {\rm t}_1 & {\rm t}_2 & {\rm t}_3\\ {\rm rest} & {\rm S} & {\rm rest} \end{array}$$In the temporal profile of a durative event times map to successive stages (I indicates the initial endpoint, F the final endpoint):
$$\begin{array}{l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l} {\rm t}_1 & {\rm t}_2 & {\rm t}_3 & {\rm t}_4 & {\rm t}_5 & {\rm t}_6 & {\rm t}_7 & {\rm t}_8\\ {\rm rest} & {\rm I} & {\rm St}_1 & {\rm St}_2 & {\rm St}_3 & {\rm St}_4 & {\rm F} & {\rm rest}\end{array}$$The endpoints can be taken as events in themselves, e.g., in inchoatives (Smith 1997).
States do not take place in time, although they hold for a moment or interval of time. What this means in terms of a temporal profile is that there is no mapping of times to stages of the state: states have no internal structure. The diagram illustrates: (Ei indicates the change into a state, Eo indicates the change out of the state.)
$$\begin{array}{l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l@{\quad}l} {\rm t}_1 & {\rm t}_2 \qquad {\rm t}_3\qquad {\rm t}_4 \qquad{\rm t}_5 & {\rm t}_6\\ {\rm rest} & {\rm E}_{{\rm i}}\hbox{- - - - - - - - - - - - -}{\rm E}_{{\rm o}} &{\rm rest} \end{array}$$The initial and final endpoints of a state are changes which map to times; there is no such mapping for the interval over which the state holds.
- 3.
The full category of States includes ‘derived statives’ such as habitual and generic sentences and others (Smith 1991). There are also derived members of the other situation type categories, but the topic is beyond the scope of this article.
The category of Achievements includes single-stage events that do not involve a change of state, e.g., flap a wing, cough. I have proposed elsewhere that these form a fifth situation type, the Semelfactive, with the features Dynamic, Atelic, Instantaneous (Smith 1991; see also Mittwoch 1991). I use the more standard classification here since questions about the fifth situation type are not relevant to the discussion of Activities.
- 4.
Completive adverbials (in…) have different interpretations with durative and instantaneous telic events. For Accomplishments, completive adverbials refer to the whole event (He built the house in a summer); for Achievements, such adverbials are ingressive, referring to the coming about of the event (He reached the top in an hour).
- 5.
For Activities the possibility of occurrence with durative adverbials is a distinguishing property; but the actual occurrence of such adverbials is not. Paradoxically, sentences that have durative adverbials pattern with heterogeneous events, as noted above. More generally, the presence of in and for adverbials can shift the interpretation of a verb constellation. Shifts occur when an adverbial appears with a verb constellation that clashes in an essential temporal feature (Smith 1993/5, 1997).
- 6.
An anonymous reviewer notes an account of durative adverbials which corroborates this point: M. Herweg, ‘Temporale Konjunktion und Aspekt’, Kognitionwissenschaft 2, 1991, 51–90. I have not seen the article. According to the reviewer, Herweg argues that durative adverbials specify the minimum duration of their arguments; they are often taken to specify exact duration, but such interpretation is due to pragmatically based inference.
- 7.
Explicitly bounded Activities are discussed in detail in Smith 1993/5. Strikingly, they allow completive verbs and adverbials as telic sentences do. (i) presents a bounded Activity sentence with finish and take, and an in-adverbial.
-
(i)a.
Mary finished playing her violin for an hour.
-
b.
It took Mary 3 hours to play her violin for an hour.
-
c.
Mary played her violin for an hour in 3 hours.
(ib) and (ic) convey that within a three hour period, Mary did an hour of violin playing. Such sentences are ambiguous with almost, like Accomplishment sentences.
-
(ii)
Mary almost played her violin for 3 hours.
…but stopped after only 2½ hours.
…but decided not to because she had too much work.
The pattern of entailment of an explicitly bounded Activity is like that of a telic sentence: the part does not entail the whole. The reverse is true for simple Activities.
The relation between durative adverbials and homogeneous situations, for instance as discussed in Vlach 1993, remains undisturbed by this result.
-
(i)a.
- 8.
Explicitly bounded States are often ambiguous with almost but do not appear with forms of completion:
-
(i)a.
#Michael finished being tired/here for an hour.
-
b.
#It took Michael an hour to be tired/here.
-
(ii)a.
Michael was almost here for an hour
…but he didn’t come after all.
…but he left after 45 minutes.
Explicitly bounded States have the same pattern of entailment as do explicitly bounded Activities.
-
(i)a.
- 9.
This notion differs somewhat from Aristotle’s energeia. Cf. the discussion in Mourelatos 1993.
- 10.
Recall that the change out of a state is itself a change of state. When a state is talked about as a discrete entity, e.g., Last month he was sick, the sentence refers to the state itself. The endpoints are understood, by inference. If the state no longer obtains the inferred final endpoint constitutes the ending of the state, Last month he was sick but he’s well now. If the state is ongoing, e.g., Last month he was sick and he still is sick, in such cases the endpoints constitute the beginning and ending of the stated temporal interval.
- 11.
The neutral viewpoint appears in certain languages in sentences that lack a viewpoint morpheme. It allows a wider range of interpretation than either perfective or imperfective viewpoints. I ignore the neutral viewpoint here (Smith 1991/1997; Chapter 4).
- 12.
In fact progressive stative sentences occur quite often, especially in informal speech. They are marked, presenting states as dynamic: I’m really loving this walk, The river is smelling particularly bad today. Progressive statives are discussed in Smith 1983, 1991.
- 13.
Perfective viewpoints differ across languages; as far as I know they all appear with dynamic verb constellations and present them as bounded in some way. See Section 4.2.
- 14.
The possibilities depend partly on a given language. In French, for instance, the passé simple, a perfective past tense, cannot be used to present events out of the order in which they appear.
- 15.
- 16.
This nicely formalizes Jespersen’s (1931) observation that the English progressive provides a temporal frame for another event. Actually the facts are more complex. Sometimes a narrative does advance with a stative or a progressive; but such cases involve additional factors and require additional inferences. Note that bounds alone do not advance narrative time: neither bounded statives, habituals, or perfects do so, although they can invite an inference of a subsequent state, which contributes to advancement.
- 17.
Hatav discusses sentences presenting events on the main story line as opposed to backgrounded situations. In these examples, Activity clauses function as events do, advancing the narrative line. The verbs have endings of the way- conjugation, a type of inflection that appears only with events on the main story line.
- 18.
Inchoatives may have an explicit verb such as begin or start: the inchoative interpretation also arises for perfective State sentences and sentences of other situation types in certain triggering contexts (Moens and Steedman 1987, Smith 1993/5).
- 19.
To see this, compare the examples below, which have progressive or State main clauses and temporal conjunctions, with (18), (19) and (20).
-
a.
Mary was walking in the park before Bill left.
-
b.
Mary was singing after Bill left.
-
c.
Mary was angry before John broke the glass.
In (a) and (c) we interpret the situation of the main clause as overlapping with that of the temporal clause, not as terminative; (b) conveys that the main clause situation was in progress after the event of the temporal clause, due to the lexical meaning of after.
There is also a difference between Activity, State, and progressives with when-clauses:
-
d.
We rehearsed when Mary left.
-
e.
We were rehearsing when Mary left.
-
f.
Mary was angry when John broke the glass.
In (d) the main clause situation can be inchoative or terminative; in (e) it must overlap with the event of the main clause; in (f) it may be inchoative, or overlap the event of the main clause (Smith 1983).
This data suggests that the property of homogeneity is not sufficient to determine whether a situation is an event or not, pace Herweg, who claims that temporal conjunctions have the effect of turning clauses of all homogeneous situations into events. According to Herweg temporal conjunctions are “semantically restricted to event-type expressions as arguments” (1991: 976). Herweg uses German examples; differences between German and English may be responsible for the discrepancy (Schilder 1997).
-
a.
- 20.
There are five such prefixes; they form perfective verb stems for Activity verb constellations. For instance, the ‘perdurative’ prefix pro- indicates limited duration; it appears with a time expression in the accusative case. The ‘delimitative’ prefix po- indicates a shorter period than expected, optionally with a time expression;
-
a.
Ona prostojala na uglu celyj čas.
She stoodPerf on the corner for an entire hour.
-
b.
On porabotal (časok).
He workedPerf a bit (for an hour).
Activity verb constellations require perfective prefixes of this class. Although the examples present situations that are specifically bounded, the situations are otherwise unchanged. As Flier puts it, “It is impossible to reconcile delimitation with any sort of net change or result” (1984: 45); the ‘pofective’ analysis of Galton (1984) makes the same point.
-
a.
- 21.
For State sentences and perfective viewpoints, languages vary considerably (Smith 1991). In English the only unmarked viewpoint for State sentences is perfective, which presents States as unbounded. In Russian states require the imperfective; in Mandarin Chinese and Navajo they require the neutral viewpoint. In French and other Romance languages, both the perfective and imperfective viewpoints are available in the past tenses for all situation types; the perfective conveys termination for States.
- 22.
Though the expectation of endpoints is not always met. For instance, as a reviewer points out, it is quite possible to say that the universe rotates eternally and mythical gods drink eternally. I would argue that the statements controvert standard default expectations.
- 23.
Energy in this sense is close to the notion of dynamism, and is one of the deepest properties that humans recognize in the situations of the world. Not surprisingly, it is reflected in people’s concepts and their realization in language. There is evidence that infants have a cognitive correlate of energy, as manifested by mechanical forces in the world (Leslie 1994). Indeed, infants apparently use from early on a principle which Gelman characterizes as ‘Attend to the source of energy’. This enables them to differentiate between objects with internal sources of energy from those that are made to move by something else (Gelman 1990). Leslie, following Talmy (1988), argues that mechanical roles and relations are reflected directly in much of the verb-argument structure of natural language.
The notion of energy cannot be reduced to spatiotemporal patterns. On precisely this point, Leslie claims that infants understand the mechanical, and not just the spatiotemporal properties of such events. His evidence comes from experiments concerning infants’ grasp of launching and the notion of agency (1994). Pascal Boyer kindly provided me with references to this material.
- 24.
I thank Nicolas Asher for helpful discussion of this point.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Sheila Glasbey and Manfred Krifka for comments on an earlier version of this article. I also thank three anonymous reviewers for their critiques.
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Smith, C.S. (2009). Activities: States or Events?. In: Meier, R., Aristar-Dry, H., Destruel, E. (eds) Text, Time, and Context. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 87. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2617-0_3
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