Event semantics
The event semantics (Engl. Event semantics ) is a theory within the formal semantics for natural languages to an article by Donald Davidson about " the logical form of action sentences back" (1967). There an independent event variable is assumed that is implicit in every event record.
Davidson event semantics
Davidson's arguments are presented in the article The Logical Form of Action Sentences. Here is the example again:
- Jones buttered the toast.
- Jones buttered the toast slowly in the bathroom with a knife.
The analysis of adverbial modifications, according to u. a. Richard Montague (1973) and Robert Stalnaker (1973) analyze such a sentence in such a way that the verb butter is a binary relation between the nominal expressions in the first sentence. The adverbs in the second sentence are verbal modifiers; i.e., they are functions of verbs after verbs:
![{\ displaystyle [with (k) (in (b) (slowly (butter)))] (j, t)}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/788a73f82d6941e0a2501728f1839d5c35d9479b)
Davidson's proposal, for various reasons, advocates analyzing verbal predicates as a three-digit relation between an implicit event variable and the nominal roles as above. The event variable is then always quantified existentially. Modifiers can be added conjunctively as required:
![{\ displaystyle \ exists e [butter (e, j, t)]}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/eeb305ff93f96a5884b47d44785eaa4a3ea9fd95)
![{\ displaystyle \ exists e [butter (e, j, t) \ wedge slowly (e) \ wedge in (e, b) \ wedge with (e, k)]}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/7662fe7e983a0330e321c42f22d32e4215a2be3c)
The neo-Davidson event semantics
In neo-Davidson event semantics (see James Higginbotham 1983 and Parsons 1990) this theory was taken a little further and argued that not only action verbs but also static verbs have an implicit event argument. In this theory, verbs are single-digit predicates about events, while semantic roles are analyzed as relationships between the event variable and the respective argument.
![{\ displaystyle \ exists e [butter (e) \ wedge agent (e) = j \ wedge theme (e) = t]}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/caaff1689dcc99d895fe5e839b4927d09eac689c)
![{\ displaystyle \ exists e [butter (e) \ wedge agent (e) = j \ wedge theme (e) = t \ wedge slowly (e) \ wedge location (e) = b \ wedge instrument (e) = k] }](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/ddf6b8af933d084ee8018db0d8e53daab3082a51)
literature
- Donald Davidson. 1967. The Logical Form of Action Sentences in: Nicholas Rescher (ed.): The Logic of Decision and Action, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.
- Higginbotham, James. 1983. The Logic of Perceptual Reports: An Extensional Alternative to Situation Semantics. Journal of Philosophy (February 1983), 80 (2): 100-127.
- Landman, Fred. 2000, Events and Plurality . Kluwer, Dordrecht.
- Parsons, Terence. 1990. Events in the Semantics of English. Cambridge, MA: MIT.