Lexical semantics and logical semantics  have traditionally  different
tools to address distinct aspects of semantic composition.  Lexical
semantics focuses on the
meanings of individual words, while logical semantics studies the
compositional properties of propositional
interpretations (e.g., attitudes and judgments). As events and event
structure have entered the field as
representational devices, these two approaches have moved closer
together:
lexical semanticists must look outward
from the verb to the sentence in order to characterize the effects of
a
verb's event structure; and logical
semanticists must look inward from the sentence to the verb to
represent
semantic facts that depend on
event-related properties of particular verbs. Concurrently,
syntacticians
have discovered phenomena in which the
semantics of events can be seen to interact with syntactic structures,
and
have had to turn to semanticists for
representations of the properties associated with events. The mapping
between syntax and event structure has
emerged as an important area of research. The discoveries that are
being
made in these different areas about the
role of events in natural language must, in the last analysis, be
connected. This volume is intended to take some
steps towards an integrated theory of events in the grammar of natural
language. Both the diversity and the
convergence of these various syntactic and semantic approaches is
reflected
in this volume of papers. This
introduction will attempt to put the papers in a common context, and
orient
them towards a common vision.