4 - Event representation, time event relations, and clause structure

Summary

Introduction

One of the central questions in cognitive linguistics concerns human cognition and the way dynamic situations are structured for expression. When language is used to convey information on experience, it is far from being a mirror of what was actually perceived. Representations are based on information stored in memory and retrieved when construing a reportable event in the language used. Taking the linguistic output as a point of reference, the process is selective, perspective-driven and interpretative. Crosslinguistic studies of event representation show that the perspectives chosen can differ, depending on the expressive means available to the speaker, and the term ‘event representation’ is used in the following to relate to event construal at this level. Many languages require speakers to direct attention to temporal contours of events, for example, as in aspect-marking languages such as Modern Standard Arabic, where events are viewed and encoded as to whether they are completed, ongoing, or relate to a specific phase (inceptive, terminative, etc.). When talking about events, speakers may also have to accommodate relational systems that include reference to the time of speech, since formal means of this kind allow us to say whether an event occurred in the near or distant past, for example, or just now. An assertion such as the lights went out when the dog barked is grounded in context, in temporal terms, since the time for which the assertion holds has been specified as preceding the time of utterance.