This course develops the framework of event semantics from its foundations to selected advanced topics, focusing on what the framework reveals about the compositional semantic properties of natural language expressions. We begin with Davidson’s (1967) argument that the logical form of action sentences requires hidden quantification over events, then trace revisions of this idea through Parsons’ (1990) neo-Davidsonian separation of thematic roles and Pietroski’s (2005) bi-eventive analysis of transitive clauses. With this architecture in place, we examine the typology of eventualities — states, activities, accomplishments, achievements — drawing on Vendler (1957), Mourelatos (1978), and others, applying event semantic methods to reveal how their distinctive ontological flavors are compositionally derived. Next, we turn to measurement and comparison of eventualities, using canonical (run more, jump more) and non-canonical (be patient more) verbal comparatives as a probe into how transitions in ontological commitment track syntactic derivation. We then examine how events figure into the analysis of perception and attitude reports, beginning with Higginbotham’s (1983) analysis of perceptual reports through Moulton’s (2009) work on how complement type determines the object of an attitude. The course closes with two topics that stress-test the full apparatus: perspectival framing of event descriptions and the analysis of negative events, both drawing on recent work from Schein. The course presupposes familiarity with predicate logic but not necessarily with event semantics.

Initial draft reading list:
Davidson (1967). The logical form of action sentences.
Parsons (1990). Events in the Semantics of English. [selections]
Pietroski (2005). Events and Semantic Architecture. [selections]
Vendler (1957). Verbs and times.
Mourelatos (1978). Events, processes, and states.
Wellwood, Hacquard & Pancheva (2012). Measuring and comparing individuals and events.
Wellwood (2016). States and events for S-level gradable adjectives.
Higginbotham (1983). The logic of perceptual reports.
Moulton (2009). Natural Selection and the Syntax of Clausal Complementation. [selections]
Wellwood (2022). Framing events in the logic of verbal modification.
Schein (2020). Negation in event semantics.