Sentence Semantics 1: situations

Sentence Semantics 1: situations

1. Situation type: is a label for the typology of situations encoded in the semantics of a language.

   • States: here the speaker gives no information about the internal structure of the state.
     • Stative verbs: are used for describing states (be, have, remain, know, love).
   • Dynamic situations: they imply that the action has subparts processes and events.
     • Durative: is applied to verbs which describe a situation or process which lasts for a period of time.
     • Punctual: describes an event that seems so instantaneous that it envolves virtually no time.
     • Telic (resultatives): refers to those processes which are seen as having a natural completion.
     • Processes.
       • Inchoatives: are processes where our attention is directed to the beginning of a new state, or to a change of state.
       • Resultatives: are processes which are viewed as having a final point of completion our attention is directed to this end of the process.
     • Events: the speaker views the situation as a whole.
     • Atelic: it continues indefinitely.

2. Tense: deitic system, are the ways in which a speaker relates references to space and time to the "here and now" of the utterance.

3. Modality: is a cover for devices which allow speakers to express varying degress of commitment to, or relief in, a proposition.

   • Moods

4. Evidentiality: allows a speaker to communicate her attitude to the source of her information.

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