{
  "compose": 1,
  "id": "davidson-events",
  "title": "Davidson 1967 — The Logical Form of Action Sentences",
  "notation": "cc",
  "domain": {
    "multiLetterNames": true,
    "constants": {
      "e": "jo shem shaun kn mid"
    },
    "variables": {
      "e": "x y z",
      "v": "e e' e''",
      "et": "P Q"
    }
  },
  "lexicon": [
    {
      "words": [
        "Jones"
      ],
      "denotation": "jo"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "Shem"
      ],
      "denotation": "shem"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "Shaun"
      ],
      "denotation": "shaun"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "midnight"
      ],
      "denotation": "mid"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "the"
      ],
      "denotation": "LP.Ix.P(x)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "toast"
      ],
      "denotation": "Lx.toast(x)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "bathroom"
      ],
      "denotation": "Lx.bathroom(x)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "knife"
      ],
      "denotation": "Lx.knife(x)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "kicked",
        "kick"
      ],
      "denotation": "Ly.Lx.Le.kick(x,y,e)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "buttered",
        "butter"
      ],
      "denotation": "Ly.Lx.Le.butter(x,y,e)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "in"
      ],
      "denotation": "Lz.Le.in(e,z)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "with"
      ],
      "denotation": "Lz.Le.with(e,z)"
    },
    {
      "words": [
        "at"
      ],
      "denotation": "Lz.Le.at(e,z)"
    }
  ],
  "rules": {
    "composition": {
      "functionApplication": true,
      "predicateModification": true,
      "nonBranchingNodes": true
    },
    "typeShifts": [
      "ec-v"
    ]
  },
  "exercises": [
    {
      "id": "g1",
      "title": "A. The event argument",
      "instructions": "Davidson: an action sentence quantifies over an event. The verb takes its usual arguments plus an event; Existential Closure binds it at the top.",
      "derivations": [
        {
          "id": "d1",
          "tree": "[.t [.DP Shem ] [.VP [.V kicked ] [.DP Shaun ] ] ]",
          "sentence": "Shem kicked Shaun.",
          "hints": [
            "kick takes object, subject, and an event: λy.λx.λe.kick(x,y,e).",
            "After the subject composes you have an event predicate ⟨v,t⟩ — close it with EC over events."
          ],
          "targets": [
            "Ee[kick(shem,shaun,e)]"
          ],
          "reading": {
            "section": "1"
          }
        },
        {
          "id": "d2",
          "tree": "[.t [.DP Jones ] [.VP [.V buttered ] [.DP [.Det the ] [.CN toast ] ] ] ]",
          "sentence": "Jones buttered the toast.",
          "targets": [
            "Ee[butter(jo,Ix[toast(x)],e)]"
          ],
          "reading": {
            "section": "1"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "g2",
      "title": "B. Adverbial modification is predication of events",
      "instructions": "Modifiers are predicates of the event, conjoined by Predicate Modification with the clause’s event description (above the subject — the whole clause describes the event). Each PP adds one conjunct, and drops by ∧-elimination: the entailment diamond.",
      "derivations": [
        {
          "id": "d1",
          "tree": "[.t [.S [.DP Jones ] [.VP [.V buttered ] [.DP [.Det the ] [.CN toast ] ] ] ] [.PP [.P in ] [.DP [.Det the ] [.CN bathroom ] ] ] ]",
          "sentence": "Jones buttered the toast in the bathroom.",
          "targets": [
            "Ee[butter(jo,Ix[toast(x)],e) & in(e,Iy[bathroom(y)])]"
          ],
          "reading": {
            "section": "2"
          }
        },
        {
          "id": "d2",
          "tree": "[.t [.S [.S [.S [.DP Jones ] [.VP [.V buttered ] [.DP [.Det the ] [.CN toast ] ] ] ] [.PP [.P in ] [.DP [.Det the ] [.CN bathroom ] ] ] ] [.PP [.P with ] [.DP [.Det the ] [.CN knife ] ] ] ] [.PP [.P at ] [.DP midnight ] ] ]",
          "sentence": "Jones buttered the toast in the bathroom with the knife at midnight.",
          "targets": [
            "Ee[butter(jo,Ix[toast(x)],e) & in(e,Iy[bathroom(y)]) & with(e,Iz[knife(z)]) & at(e,mid)]"
          ],
          "reading": {
            "section": "2"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "reading": {
    "format": "latex",
    "markdown": "# Davidson 1967 · The Logical Form of Action Sentences\n\nCompanion to Donald Davidson, \"The Logical Form of Action Sentences\" (in\nN. Rescher (ed.), *The Logic of Decision and Action*, 1967, 81–95; quoted\nhere from the reprint in *The Essential Davidson*, OUP 2006). Prose that is\nnot quoted is signposting or a flagged rendering note.\n\n## 1 The event argument\n\nThe paper opens: \"Strange goings on! Jones did it slowly, deliberately, in\nthe bathroom, with a knife, at midnight. What he did was butter a piece of\ntoast.\" Against the polyadic analysis (his (2), *Jones buttered the toast in\nthe bathroom with a knife at midnight*), Davidson objects: \"If we go on to\nanalyse 'Jones buttered the toast' as containing a two-place predicate,\n'Jones buttered the toast in the bathroom' as containing a three-place\npredicate, and so forth, we obliterate the logical relations between these\nsentences, namely that (2) entails the others.\"\n\nHis proposal: \"The basic idea is that verbs of action — verbs that say 'what\nsomeone did' — should be construed as containing a place, for singular terms\nor variables, that they do not appear to. For example, we would normally\nsuppose that 'Shem kicked Shaun' consisted in two names and a two-place\npredicate. I suggest, though, that we think of 'kicked' as a three-place\npredicate, and that the sentence to be given in this form: (17)\n(∃x)(Kicked(Shem, Shaun, x)).\" His gloss: \"'There is an event x such that x\nis a kicking of Shaun by Shem' is about the best I can do\".\n\n\\ex Shem kicked Shaun.\n\\xe\n\n\\begin{derivation}\n[[kicked]] = Ly.Lx.Le.kick(x,y,e) : <e,<e,<v,t>>>\nEe[kick(shem, shaun, e)] : t\n\\end{derivation}\n\nRendering note: the worksheet keeps Davidson's ordered-argument form — the\nverb takes its arguments plus one extra event place, exactly (17). The\nneo-Davidsonian decomposition into thematic-role conjuncts (AGENT, PATIENT)\nis later work — Castañeda's comment on this paper and Parsons (1990) — and\nis what the ch11.3 worksheet implements; compare the two.\n\n## 2 Modifiers are predicates of events\n\nDavidson postpones *slowly* and *deliberately* in (1): \"'Slowly', unlike the\nother adverbial clauses, fails to introduce a new entity (a place, an\ninstrument, a time)\", and \"It alone imputes intention\" (of *deliberately*).\nThe remaining modifiers become predicates of the event variable.\n\nRendering note: in the worksheet each PP denotes an event predicate ⟨v,t⟩\n(e.g. λe.in(e, ιy.bathroom(y))), conjoined by Predicate Modification, with\nExistential Closure binding the event on top. Each formula extends the\nprevious by one conjunct, so ∧-elimination delivers exactly the entailments\nwhose loss Davidson complained of in the quote above.\n\n\\pex\n\\a Jones buttered the toast.\n\\a Jones buttered the toast in the bathroom.\n\\a Jones buttered the toast in the bathroom with the knife at midnight.\n\\xe\n\nOmitted from the worksheet: the intentional adverbs Davidson set aside, his\ndiscussion of Reichenbach and Kenny, and the identity of events under\nredescription (the Susan Channel-crossing and spaceship cases).\n\n## Credits\n\nDavidson, D. (1967). The logical form of action sentences. In N. Rescher\n(ed.), *The Logic of Decision and Action*, 81–95. University of Pittsburgh\nPress; reprinted in *Essays on Actions and Events* (OUP 1980) and *The\nEssential Davidson* (OUP 2006), from which the quotes above are taken\n(OCR-checked, spelling normalized). — Parsons, T. (1990). *Events in the\nSemantics of English*. MIT Press (the neo-Davidsonian development, cf.\nch11.3). Notes text: quotes as marked, plus flagged rendering notes;\nremaining prose is signposting."
  },
  "meta": {
    "author": "Thomas Stephen",
    "license": "MIT",
    "difficulty": "challenge"
  }
}