UNTIL, Aspect, and Negation: A Novel Argument for Two "Until"s

UNTIL, Aspect, and Negation: A Novel Argument for Two Untils

1. Outline of the argument The puzzle of English until is well-known. Karttunen 1974 argues that until is ambiguous between a durative and a punctual negative polarity (NPI) meaning. Mittwoch 1977 claims that there is no ambiguity and that the two meanings are due to scope differences: NPI-until is in fact until above negation. Mittwoch's account relies crucially on the assumption that negation...

Tense, Aspect, and Argument Structure

This paper is concerned with an intriguing difference between Japanese and English involving the progressive form be V-ing and the -te iru form as well as the passive constructions in the two languages. Some of the complex semantic properties of the -te iru construction in Japanese are discussed in Ogihara (1998), where I present a proposal to account for the multiple interpretations associated...

Verbs Aspect and Argument Structure

Aspect and the Syntax of Argument Structure

We use the term " argument structure " to refer to the syntactic configuration projected by a lexical item. It is the system of structural relations holding between heads (nuclei) and their arguments within the syntactic structures projected by nuclear items. While a lexical entry is more than this, of course, argument structure in the sense intended here is nothing other than this. Argument st...

passivity in waiting for godot and endgame: a psychoanalytic reading

this study intends to investigate samuel beckett’s waiting for godot and endgame under the lacanian psychoanalysis. it begins by explaining the most important concepts of lacanian psychoanalysis. the beckettian characters are studied regarding their state of unconscious, and not the state of consciousness as is common in most beckett studies. according to lacan, language plays the sole role in ...