Measuring Events
Guido Vanden Wyngaerd
May 2001
 

The telic-atelic distinction has been argued to hinge on the presence of a (bounded) internal argument measuring out the event, or, alternatively, a resultative small clause providing an end point for the event. Both perspectives are partially correct and partially incorrect. On the one hand, the resultative is more adequately seen as a measure than an end point; on the other, it is the resultative predicate rather than the internal argument that performs this measuring function. Empirical evidence is adduced in support of this point of view: resultative predicates are subject to the requirement that they denote a bounded scale. Only bounded predicates can delimit an event by providing it with minimal parts. As a matter of conceptual necessity, unbounded predicates, though potentially denoting end points, cannot function as event measures.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/005932
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Language 77(1), 2001, 61-90
keywords: aspect, resultatives, teiicity, boundedness, measuring out, semantics, syntax
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