[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop, Feb. 21

[Dimitri Gondicas]

                          Princeton University
                      Program in Hellenic Studies

                                Workshop

                     Defining Narrative Structures:
            Dynamic Temporal Configurations in Modern Greek

                            Maria Tzevelekou
         Institute for Language and Speech Processing, Athens;
              Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies
                         mtzevele at princeton.edu

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The talk will address the question of how temporal information is
conveyed in Modern Greek narratives. In narrations, we describe events
and activities that took place and states that held at a certain period
of time. We also describe events, activities, or states that occurred or
held in parallel or occurred in a definite temporal order. How do we
sort and classify predicates into events, states, or activities? What
are the linguistic means we use in order to specify as senders, or
retrieve and reconstruct as receivers, what happened when? The analysis
is based on the assumption that temporal reasoning is (under)determined
by partial information provided by the combination of two basic
factors:  text type and temporal ingredients. Text type pertains to the
distinction between conversational and narrative contexts. Narrative
text type is viewed as closed universe, disjoint from utterance deictic
device. Temporal ingredients comprise three components: time location
(past/present/future), viewpoint aspect
(perfective/imperfective/perfect) and lexical aspect (Aktionsart)
(events/activities/states). Narrative puts significant constraints in
the wide array of semantic values displayed by temporal and aspectual
markers, whereas the merging of temporal ingredients organizes narration
on the basis of foreground and background and provides a certain number
of interpretative options (event order, duration, linear succession,
causal chains, narrator’s judgment or involvement, etc.), which are
further processed in the light of pragmatic knowledge.
                      _____________________________

MARIA TZEVELEKOU studied theoretical and formal linguistics in Paris
(Paris-VII – Denis Diderot). She is a senior researcher at the Institute
for Language and Speech Processing, Athens (http://www.ilsp.gr).  She
also teaches General Linguistics at the University of Athens and
postgraduate courses on Formal Semantics and Language Processing at the
University of the Ionian and at the National Technical University of
Athens. She is co-editor of  Machine Translation and Modern Greek
Language (In Greek; Athens, 2000) and author of Aspect et cat?gorisation
lexicale: le syst?me aspectual du grec moderne  (forthcoming from
Editions Ophrys, Paris). She has published articles on Lexical
Categories, Tense and Aspect, Modality and on Second Language
Acquisition.  Her areas of interest include: the philosophy of language,
semantics, language acquisition, historical linguistics, and natural
language processing.

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                       Friday, February 21, 2003
                               2:30 p.m.
                      58 Prospect Avenue, Room 107

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The HELLENIC STUDIES WORKSHOP provides an opportunity for post-doctoral
fellows, visiting fellows, and graduate students to present their
work-in-progress or recently published research.  The aim is to
encourage exchange of ideas across disciplines among Classical scholars,
Byzantinists, and Modern Greek Studies specialists.

DATES:  Most Fridays, 2:30-4:00 p.m., during the term.  Dates, speakers
and titles will be announced in advance via e-mail.

PLACE: Room 107, 58 Prospect Avenue (Program in Hellenic Studies),
Princeton University

For further information about current events in Hellenic Studies, please
refer to the calendar posted on our website:
http://www.princeton.edu/~hellenic/
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