Talmy lays out a detailed analysis of force dynamics underlying the verbs, in pictures and text. In this assignment, you will explore how we might encode such knowledge in a representation that would support reasoning and derive entailments. Consider the following example, the encoding of the force dynamics for The ball kept rolling because of the wind blowing on it.
The components of this diagram encode at least the following: (a) the agonists tendency is towards rest, (b) the result of the force is action, (c) the atagonist is stronger and thus (d) the agonist continues in action (e.g., moving in example above).
1. Encode all the implications present in this diagram in temporal logic, including the above but possibly more.
2. Can we encode a compositional way to map from diagrams to logic, or some other representation. With this analysis, we'd have a algorithm to convert any force dynamics picture into a set of entailments. Note, this is not easy, as graphical elements are contextually interpreted. You might try to do this by first capturing the structure of diagrams in logic - i.e., have predicates for the different elements, their relative position (when relevant), etc. However, please pursue whatever approach seems most promising to you.
3. What are the implications of this theory for lexical meaning (i.e., can we define the meanings of words in terms such that they contribute compositionally to constructing the force dynamics analysis of an entire sentence). As concrete examples, consider how the meaning of the words keep and because contribute to the meaning of the example above.
I have not done this exercise yet, so I expect there will be some challenges. Email your analyses to Greg and me on Thursday and be prepared to give a brief overview of your approach in class on Friday. We'll spend the second half of the class discussing this topic.