"Speaking of Events"
		
			James Higginbotham

	This course will consider both classical and recent literature on 
the nature of events, and of reference to events in natural languages. We 
explore the view that there is a position for events (in the sense of Davidson) 
in the theta-structure of heads, the motivation for this view, and its 
consequences especially for the understanding of quantificational adverbs;
constructions of perception and causation; plurals; telicity; first-person 
readings of anaphora; perfective and progressive aspect; and other 
morphological processes in English and other languages, with particular 
reference to Chinese and Italian. We will also consider some literature 
either critical of this point of view or offering alternative, or 
additional, views e.g. of events as universal, in the sense of Montague 
and others. 

An extensive annotated bibliography will be available in advance, both 
at the instructor's website and through whatever arrangements will be 
made. Handouts will be available for all lectures. Besides basic knowledge 
of syntax and semantics, acquaintance with possible-worlds semantics. The 
lectures themselves, however, will not demand any prior study of the 
subject.

1. Introduction. The ``neo-Davidsonia'' view of events, extending the 
event position to all ``normal'' heads. Thematic roles as relations of 
events to participants (Carlson, Higginbotham, Parsons). Telicity through 
ordered pairs of events. Applications to nominalization, with implications 
for derived and mixed nominals. Interaction with truth conditions for 
sentences with light verbs such as `give' (in `give the rope a pull'), 
`take' etc., inceptives such as `start', `begin', and direct predications 
such as `last' or `happen' (Higginbotham, Kearns), and for sentences 
with simple plurals (Schein, Higginbotham and others).

2. Aspectual classes of predicates, and the prospects for, and arguments 
against, reducing these to aspectual classes of heads, as in Vendler, 
Krifka, and others. Interpretation of the progressive (Landman, Higginbotham, 
Rothstein), and perfective (Parsons, Kratzer), and their combination. 
Crosslinguistic parameters, with reference to Chineses, Japanese 
(Ogihara and others), and Italian (Giorgi and Pianesi). Interpretations 
of adverbs of intention and quantification.

3. Extensional and Intensional Theories of Tense (Kamp, Enc, and others). 
Sequence of Tense phenomena mediated by anaphoric relations between events 
and states. The speaker's present, indicated by `now', and links to the 
`de se' phenomena and their interpretation (Chierchia, Cresswell, 
Schlenker, Higginbotham). 

4. Causative, particle, and resultative constructions (Hoekstra, 
Kayne and others). Notions of ``direct causation'' and complex telics, 
as `eat up'. Linguistic parameters permitting of forbidding 
resultatives: Chinese/English vs. Romance/Korean (Folli, Higginbotham). 
The projection rule for resultatives as small-clause complements. 

5. Denominal V as `saddle', `shelve' and `peel' (Hale and Keyser) 
and their normative meanings (Kiparsky, Higginbotham). Arguments 
on the ``atomicity'' of the lexicon (Fodor and Lepore, Pustejovsky). 
Final considerations on events and actions (Davidson) and their 
individuation. Interactions with notions of generic events as in 
Montague, and causation versus causal explanation.