Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Event: A change of state. The event itself has no duration, otherwise the beginning and the end of the event would have to have their own duration or the beginning and the end of an event in turn would be independent events. See also regress, process, flux, change, states.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Peter Gärdenfors on Events - Dictionary of Arguments

I 65
Event/Semantic Domain/Language Acquisition/Semantics/Gärdenfors: Thesis: I am modeling events with two vectors: a force vector, which typically represents an action, and a result vector that describes a change of a physical movement or an object.
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I 159
Events/Gärdenfors: there are principally three different approaches:
(i) Metaphysical analyzes describing the ontology of events
(ii) Cognitive models that represent how humans (or animals) represent events mentally. See Langacker (1987, sec. 3.3)(1), Givón (2001)(2), Croft & Wood (2000) (3), Langacker, (2008, chap. 3) (4); Croft, (2012a, sec. 1.4)(5).
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I 160
(iii) Linguistic studies describing the expressions with which events are constructed. E.g.

[[ACT ‹Manner› ] CAUSE [BECOME (Y ‹BROKEN› ]]].

Vectors/event/Gärdenfors: with vectors we can represent changes of objects and distinguish events from their linguistic expressions:
Definition State/Gärdenfors: is a set of points in a conceptual space.
Definition Change/Gärdenfors: a change of a state is represented by a vector.
Definition Path/Gärdenfors: is a continuous sequence of changes. (That is, there are no jumps).
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I 161
Vectors: not all belong to the acting ones: e.g. opposing forces.
Acting/Agent: is not necessarily part of the event.
Gärdenfors: this is about mental representation, not about a scientific representation of what is happening in an event, e.g. physically.
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I 162
Vectors: an event contains at least two vectors and one object. 1. Result vector: represents the change, 2. Force vector: causes the change.
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I 164
Event/intransitive/Gärdenfors: Problem: in intransitive constructions (e.g. "Susanna goes") the acting and the changed object (patiens) are identical. Then the conceptual space of the agent and of the object (patiens) coincide.
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I 165
Partial events/decomposition/parts/Gärdenfors: two ways can be selected when dividing into sub-events:
1. Events can be divided as simultaneously occurring or parallel partial events in the dimensions of the object space (patient space).
2. They can be represented successively by parts of paths.
Agent/Patient/semantic roles/Gärdenfors: both can be represented as points in the category space. The domains of the space then define the properties of both.
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I 166
Patient/Linguistics/Gärdenfors: can be animated or inanimated, concrete or abstract. It has its own patient space with domains for properties. In contrast to the object categories, the properties usually contain the localization.
Agent: has accordingly its agent space, which has at least one force domain.
Dowty (1991): presents prototypical agents and prototypic patients. It is also about volitional involvement in an event.(6)
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I 171
Event/Linguistics/Gärdenfors: there are three approaches for dealing with events in linguistics:
1. Localist Approach: (Jackendoff, 1976, 1983, 1990)(7)(8)(9): Thesis: all verbs can be constructed as verbs of movement and localization.
GärdenforsVsJackendoff: in his approach...
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I 172
...force vectors cannot be represented appropriately.
2. Approach on aspects: (e.g. Vendler, 1957)(10): distinguishes between states, activities, achievements and accomplishments. See also Jackendoff, 1991, sec. 8.3; Levin & Rappaport Hovav, 2005, p. 90).
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I 174
3. Causal Approach: e.g. Croft (2012a, 2012b)(13)(14) three-dimensional representation of causal and aspectual structures of events. Gärdenfors: that comes closest to my own approach. A geometric model is designed here.
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I 175
The vectors in such models are not in a vacuum, but are always in relation to a domain and its information, e.g. temperature.
GärdenforsVsCroft: his approach does not support force vectors.


1. Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar (Vol. 1). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
2. Givón, T. (2001). Syntax (Vol. 1). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
3. Croft, W., & Wood, E. J. (2000). Construal operations in linguistics and artificial intelligence. In L. Albertazzi (Ed.), Meaning and cognition: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 51–78). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
4. Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford.
5. Croft, W. (2012a). Verbs: Aspect and argument structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Dowty, D. (1991). Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language, 67, 547–619.
7. Jackendoff, R. (1976). Toward an explanatory semantic representation. Linguistic Inquiry, 7, 89–150.
8. Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
9. Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
10. Vendler, Z. (1957). Verbs and times. Philosophical Review, 56, 97 – 121.
11. Jackendoff, R. (1991). Parts and boundaries. Cognition, 41, 9–45.
12. Levin, B., & Rappaport Hovav, M. (2005). Argument realization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13. Croft, W. (2012a). Verbs: Aspect and argument structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14. Croft, W. (2012b). Dimensional models of event structure and verbal semantics. Theoretical Linguistics, 38, 195–203.


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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Gä I
P. Gärdenfors
The Geometry of Meaning Cambridge 2014


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