Modeling temporal progression in Mandarin: Aspect markers and temporal relations

This dissertation examines how the aspectual properties of aspect markers in Mandarin affect the temporal relations between clauses. The significant point (SigP) analysis is proposed to account for the aspectual properties of aspect markers. The SigP for an event/eventuality is defeasibly inferred from the aktionsart of that event/eventuality. The SigP for accomplishment and achievement is their natural final endpoint. Accomplishment differs from achievement in that the former has a noticeable process between its initial endpoint and its natural final endpoint, while the initial endpoint and the natural final endpoint of the latter coincide. The SigP for activity is undefined because it does not have a natural final endpoint. The SigP for state with an initial endpoint is its initial endpoint while the SigP for state without an initial endpoint is undefined.;The progressive marker zai is argued to present an event ongoing at an instant. The durative marker zhe is argued to present a homogeneous event/eventuality lasting over an interval. The perfective marker le is argued to identify the SigP of an event/eventuality and to locate it before a reference time (RT). The experiential marker guo is argued to predicate on an event type, which is mapped to an event token by the Type-Token-Relation (TKR).;Examples of other rhetorical relations require explicit lexical information or indicators such as yinwei ‘because’, danshi ‘but’, etc. Explicit lexical information and these indicators can override the default rhetorical relation specified by an aspect marker as long as there is no aspectual clash.;Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) is utilized to model the temporal relations, which are determined by the meaning postulates for rhetorical relations in the Satisfaction Schema, which is used to interpret discourse.;The dissertation has two important theoretical implications. First, it provides strong support for the view of dynamic semantics on meanings. Secondly, it clarifies and verifies the intuitive impression that Mandarin is a discourse-oriented language. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).