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The different distinctions related to lexical aspect –state, activity, accomplishments and achievements– play an important role in the grammar of Spanish, but many of the details about how these distinctions can be implemented are unclear: which features distinguish between the classes, how the classes relate to each other, what is the nature of telicity or dynamicity and how one can account for the alternations that a verb is subject to involving its aspect are some of the most important problems from this perspective. The goal of this article is to provide a sufficient empirical base to address these questions and present the current alternatives to answer them.Las distinctiones que se refieren al aspecto léxico de un verbo –estado, actividad, realización y logro– desempeñan un papel importante en la gramática del español, pero muchos detalles acerca de cómo se pueden implementar dichas distinciones son pc claros: qué rasgos diferencian a las clases, cómo se relacionan unas con otras, qué naturaleza tienen la telicidad o la dinamicidad y cómo se puede dar cuenta de las alternancias de aspecto léxico a las que está sujeto un mismo verbo son solo algunos de los problemas más importantes dentro de este dominio. El objetivo de este trabajo es el de presentar una base empírica suficiente para discutir estas preguntas y presentar las distintas opciones que se han propueto para responder a ellas.

Resumo: A telicidade se caracteriza pela presença de um ponto final do evento delimitado linguisticamente na sentença. Um dos meios pelos quais essa delimitação pode ser feita se dá pela inserção de determinantes no complemento verbal. No espanhol, discute-se se determinantes plurais conduzem a uma leitura télica ou atélica da sentença. Nessa língua, existe uma partícula aspectual conhecida como “se” télico que ratifica o valor de telicidade da sentença. Dessa forma, ele é utilizado, nesta pesquisa, como um instrumento para a verificação do papel que possuem os determinantes plurais, quando encabeçam o complemento verbal, para a delimitação do evento. Diante disso, pretendeu-se, com este trabalho, verificar se o “se” télico poderia combinar-se com verbos que contivessem complementos verbais encabeçados por determinantes plurais no espanhol a partir de dados das variedades faladas na Colômbia e no Chile. Para tanto, foi aplicado um teste linguístico, caracterizado como de julgamento de gramaticalidade comentado, a falantes nativos dessas regiões. Os resultados demonstram que que a associação investigada no estudo é possível em ambas as variedades e que complementos verbais encabeçados por determinantes plurais conduzem a uma leitura télica da sentença. Além disso, foi possível observar que a associação do “se” télico com verbos como “beber” e com determinantes como “ciertos(as)” e “pocos(as)” parece pouco frequente na língua. Discutiu-se que o “se” télico parece combinar-se com mais frequência com verbos que contenham complementos encabeçados por determinantes plurais que possuam uma menor dependência contextual. Palavras-chave: telicidade; “se” télico; determinantes; delimitação; espanhol. Abstract: Telicity is characterized by the presence of an endpoint of the event linguistically delimited in the sentence. One of the ways in which this delimitation can be made is through the insertion of determiners in the verbal complement. In Spanish, it is discussed whether plural determiners lead to a telic or atelic reading of the sentence. In that language, there is an aspectual particle known as the telic “se” that ratifies the telicity value of the sentence. Thus, it is used, in this research, as an instrument to verify the role that plural determiners have, when they head the verbal complement, for the delimitation of the event. In view of this, it was intended, with this work, to verify if the telic “se” could be combined with verbs that contained verbal complements headed by plural determiners in Spanish based on data from the varieties spoken in Colombia and Chile. For this purpose, a linguistic test, characterized as commented grammar judgment, was applied to native speakers of these regions. The results demonstrate that the association investigated in the study is possible in both varieties and that verbal complements headed by plural determiners lead to a telic reading of the sentence. In addition, it was possible to observe that the association of the telic “se” with verbs such as “beber” and with determiners such as “ciertos(as)” and “pocos(as)” seems infrequent in the language. It was argued that the telic “se” seems to combine more frequently with verbs that contain complements headed by plural determiners that have less contextual dependence. Keywords: telicity; telic “se”; determiners; delimitation; Spanish.

This study examines the acquisition of functional morphology which overtly marks lexical aspect in Russian by adult second language (L2) learners of Turkish. Russian and Turkish are different in the ways they mark both grammatical and lexical aspects. In Russian, both grammatical and lexical (telic) aspects are marked by overt verbal morphology. In Turkish, however, while the grammatical aspect of verbs is marked by inflectional morphemes, which also express tense and/or mood (Kornfilt, 1997), lexical aspect (telicity) is marked by quantized nominal arguments combined with dynamic verbs. We tested 16 L1 Turkish/L2 Russian learners and 16 L1 Russian speakers on a Semantic Entailment (SE) task with telicity and boundedness semantic features and a Truth-Value Judgment (TVJ) task involving sentences with perfective and imperfective forms including quantity and non-quantity internal argument themes. The results of the SE task indicated that L2 Russian speakers were not as successful as L1 Russian speakers in choosing the most logical entailment to perfective sentences rather than imperceptive sentences. The differences between the two groups were statistically significant. The results of the TVJ task also indicated that L2 Russian speakers were less successful than L1 Russian speakers in matching perfective and imperfective sentences with correct pictures. These findings support the claim that adult L2 speakers have difficulty with the acquisition of functional morphology, in particular aspectual morphology and its telicity feature., Bu çalışma, Türkçeyi ileri yaşta ikinci dil (D2) olarak öğrenenler tarafından Rusçada sözcüksel görünüşü açıkça belirten işlevsel morfolojinin edinimini incelemektedir. Rusça ve Türkçe, hem dilbilgisel hem de sözcüksel görünüşü belirtme biçimleri açısından farklıdır. Rusçada hem dilbilgisel hem de sözcüksel (erekli) görünüşler, açık fiil morfolojisi ile belirtilir. Öte yandan Türkçede fiillerin dilbilgisel görünüşü, zaman ve/veya kipi de ifade eden çekim biçimbirimleriyle (Kornfilt, 1997); sözcüksel görünüş (ereklilik) ise dinamik fiillerle birlikte kullanılan nicelendirilmiş ad argümanları ile belirtilir. Ereklilik ve bağımlılık anlam özelliklerine sahip bir Anlamsal Gerektirim görevi (SET) ve miktara bağlı olan ve olmayan dahili argüman temaları içeren tamamlanmış ve tamamlanmamış formlu cümleleri kapsayan bir Doğruluk Değeri Yargısı (TVJ) görevinden oluşan bu çalışma, 16 D1 Türkçe/D2 Rusça konuşanı ile 16 D1 Rusça konuşanına uygulanmıştır. SET görevinin sonuçları, D2 Rusça konuşanlarının tamamlanmamış cümlelerden ziyade, tamamlanmış cümlelere en mantıksal gerektirmeyi seçmekte D1 Rusça konuşanları kadar başarılı olmadıklarını göstermiştir. İki grup arasındaki farklılıklar istatiksel olarak anlamlı bulunmuştur. TVJ görevinin sonuçları da D2 Rusça konuşanlarının tamamlanmış ve tamamlanmamış cümleleri doğru resimlerle eşleştirmede D1 Rusça konuşanlarından daha az başarılı olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. Bu bulgular, ileri yaşta D2 konuşanlarının işlevsel morfolojinin, özellikle de görünüş morfolojisi ve onun ereklilik özelliğinin ediniminde zorlandığı iddiasını desteklemektedir.

I consider here the question of whether the aspectual properties of idioms are compositionally determined with respect to the normal literal meanings of their components. This issue is unresolved in the literature, with some (Marantz 1997; McGinnis 2002, 2005) arguing for systematic literal compositionality, some noting mismatches in the aspectual properties of some idioms’ literal and figurative readings and therefore arguing for compositionality with respect to idioms’ meanings only (Glasbey 2003, 2007), and others attempting to reconcile the two views, maintaining systematic literal compositionality while accounting for mismatches by adding aspectual information post-syntactically (Leivada 2017) or by nonlinguistic conceptual processes (Mateu and Espinal 2007). Working within a monotonic model of aspectual composition in which telicity, durativity, and dynamicity are privative features inherent to verbs (Olsen 1997), I present further evidence for Glasbey’s position, arguing that that the aspectual properties of idioms are predictable on the basis of their figurative meanings, and that the literal readings of their components are irrelevant to aspectual composition, at least in the domain of language production. I further argue that some phrasal idioms are more highly specified than their commonly paraphrased meanings, and that idiomaticity represents a motivated exception to Olsen’s model in that idioms may be negatively specified for telicity, durativity, and dynamicity. I conclude that this exception falls out directly from the assumption that idioms may lexicalize a larger structure than verbs, speculating that this may include an inner aspect head in the syntax.

The interaction of lexical actionality with grammatical aspect is explained in a comprehensive system, based on the “degree of temporal dynamics” of simple and complex actional classes and of the various functions, expressed by aspect grammemes (extended ILA model, focus aspect). Then a new conceptualization of less frequent aspect phenomena is presented. A novelty is the differentiation of focus aspect from status aspect, characterized by habitualization and the transformation of telic events into atelic activities. Argument structures are claimed to be responsible for class changes, especially with respect to the incorporative (INCO) class, combining activity, telicity and a subsequent state.

This dissertation examines competition between simple and compound verbs in Ancient Greek. The argument is that the theory of scalar transitivity, as presented by scholars such as Hopper and Thompson, can be used to account for the value of grammaticalized preverbs in Greek. The project focuses on the preverbs κατα- and δια-, which both express motion that reaches the end of a trajectory, before losing this semantic value to serve a grammatical function, namely marking higher transitivity. By comparing the features of the verbs, subjects, and objects in clauses with a simplex and compound, we conclude that compounds with such a preverb are more transitive than their simple partners. Findings are based on evidence from prose texts written in the Attic dialect from the Classical period. The main authors are thus Thucydides, Isocrates, Plato, and Xenophon. The project is essentially synchronic, with questions of diachronic development receiving limited attention. The project starts with a chapter that looks at the history of work on preverbs in Greek, introduces the concept of scalar transitivity, and briefly treats certain topics such as preverbal deletion. Most of the dissertation consists of case studies which assess when the authors in question write a simple verb or its compound (with either κατα- or δια-). There are two main parts: the first focuses on κατα-, the second on δια-. Each part has a chapter that focuses on the parameter of affectedness, another that focuses on Aktionsart, and a final chapter with a case study where the voice and semantics of the verb are important for determining the difference between the simplex and compound. A final chapter argues that κατα- is more reliable as a transitivizing preverb than δια-, before presenting some diachronic data on how the use of κατα- and δια- progressed from the fifth to the fourth century BC.

Nuosu Yi is a Tibeto-Burman (henceforth TB) language lacking sufficient core case markers. Depending on the telicity and aspectuality of the predicates, its basic word order splits into APV and rigid PAV. To be specific, the atelic and/or imperfective predicates are APV, while the telic predicates indicated by the resultativity or perfect aspect are PAV. This paper describes the semantics and syntax of the syntactic PAV and APV of Nuosu Yi thoroughly; and compares them to other TB languages in terms of role marking strategies. I propose that the conditions of split word order in Nuosu Yi are on a par with those of the split ergativity encoded by the morphological marking in Tibetan and some other TB languages; namely, the rigid PAV corresponds to the ergative alignment, and the rigid APV corresponds to the accusative alignment. The study will deepen Nuosu Yi’s morpho-syntax study and show the word order diversity to the studies of linguistic typology. Additionally, the study sheds light on the possibility of extending the definition of ergativity and its potential counterpart.

The paper presents the results of a study investigating a possible influence of the viewpoint (perfective vs. imperfective) and lexical (telic vs. atelic) aspect of Polish verbs on the countability of eventive nominalizations (substantiva verbalia) derived from these verbs. Polishsubstantiva verbaliapreserve many properties of the base verbs, including the eventive meaning and aspectual morphology. Native speakers of Polish rated the acceptability of nominalizations in count and mass contexts. An effect of both viewpoint and lexical aspect was found in mass contexts, where aspectually delimited (perfective, accomplishment) nominalizations were less acceptable than non-delimited (imperfective, state) nominalizations. In count contexts, only an effect of the lexical aspect was clearly present, with accomplishment nominalizations being more acceptable than state nominalizations. The nominalizations were overall rated as more natural in mass than count constructions, regardless of the aspect. The results indicate that aspect plays a role in establishing the countability of a word, but it does not fully determine it.

Given that the notion of telicity was simply defined by English linguists as a situation which tends towards a goal, this paper will additionally explain and define telicity in the English language. Moreover, the issue of telicity in the Serbian and Romanian relevant linguistic literature has been scarcely analysed. This paper aims to ascertain and define telicity as an indispensable semantic characteristic of Serbian and Romanian verbs. Since the paper proves that the concept of telicity can be detected in languages other than English, telicity can and should be considered a linguistic universal.

La telicidad es una noción aspectual semántica que se caracteriza por la presencia de un punto final inherente de la situación marcado lingüísticamente. En español, hay un clítico que se conoce por se télico que se puede usar solamente en sentencias que transmiten el valor aspectual télico. Según De Miguel (1999) la presencia de determinantes plurales indefinidos en el complemento verbal conduce a una lectura atélica y, por eso, no se puede usar el se télico en sentencias que contengan dicha construcción, al paso que, para Gomes y Martins (en prensa), basados en datos del español de España, esa construcción verbal conduce a una lectura télica y, por lo tanto, el uso del se télico es posible. Así, se objetiva en este trabajo verificar si se puede combinar el se télico con verbos cuyos complementos sean introducidos por determinantes plurales indefinidos en el español de Argentina y de Venezuela. Para este fin, se aplicó un test de juicio de gramaticalidad comentado a 15 hablantes nativos de esas variedades. Los resultados indican que dicha combinación es posible en ambas. Se discutió que el valor aspectual télico de una sentencia no depende de una cuantificación precisa para la delimitación del complemento.

資料・研究ノート Source Materials and Remarks

SummaryIn this paper, I am going to deal with illocutionary intensification, one of the specific features of curse texts, and the role prefixes play in it. Illocutionary intensification operates at the discursive-pragmatic level, modifying the illocutive act through strengthening and modal reinforcement, and is typically applied to verbs and verbal modifiers.1 Latin curse tablets evidence various linguistic peculiarities. They are highly formulaic and contain features related to the category of language for special purposes.2 These texts often employ peculiar textual rules which reflect the magical ritual accompanying the text and are focused on the supposed effect on the curse victim. In many of these texts, we can observe various strategies of illocutionary intensification, such as word repetition, which is relatively rare in literary texts, and the use of evaluative prefixes.

We very warmly dedicate this volume to the memory of Edit Doron, Anita Mittwoch and Susan Rothstein for their inspiring and outstanding contribution to research on tense, aspect and verb meanings.

The acquisition literature has documented several different types of misinterpretations of telic sentences by children, yet a comprehensive analysis of these child interpretations has not been attempted and a crosslinguistic perspective is lacking. This task is not easy, for, on the surface, children's non-adultlike interpretations appear to be scattered and even contradictory across languages. Several cognitive biases have been proposed to explain given patterns (children initially adhere to a Manner bias, or alternatively a Result bias). Reviewing a wide range of studies on the acquisition of telic sentences in relation to tense-aspect markers, we show that children's non-adultlike interpretations fall into three different patterns. We conclude that the diversity of non-adultlike interpretations that is found across child languages is incompatible with accounts that rely on these cognitive, language-independent principles, but instead is triggered by language-specific properties. Analyzing these patterns in detail, it appears that child learners across languages have problems with tense-aspect forms with variable meanings, in contrast to forms with a one-to-one form/meaning mappings which are acquired earlier. While adults use a context-sensitive interpretation of forms with multiple meanings, various semantic-pragmatic sources can explain children's difficulties with interpreting such forms. All explanations that we identify across child languages rely on children's immature command of pragmatic reasoning, albeit in very different ways for the three different patterns. Thus, by taking a crosslinguistic semantic approach and integrating detailed insights from the tense-aspect semantics of specific languages with universal pragmatic effects, we explain the non-adultlike interpretation of telic sentences in a variety of child languages in a comprehensive way. F. Martin was supported by the project B5 of the SFB 732 financed by the DFG and hosted by the University of Stuttgart, and by DFG award AL 554/8-1 (Leibniz-Preis 2014) to Artemis Alexiadou. I. García del Real was supported by the project MINECO/FEDER (FFI2015-68589-C2-1-P).

This study examines the role of the morphology of applicatives in marking the telicity of applicative verbs in Ruruuli-Lunyala. Applicative verbs in Bantu languages have largely been investigated as allowing a new object Noun Phrase (NP) within the subcategorization of their base verb; this leads to a change of valency with the new Noun Phrase (NP) often giving a certain thematic role. However, less attention has been put on the role of the applicative in supporting the notion that argument projection may be aspectually determined. All applicative verbs in Ruruuli-Lunyala can be used with specialised overt telicity markers kakyarumwei ‘completely’ / ’very’/ ‘a lot’ and were ‘for nothing’. The research findings indicate an interesting relationship between these degree modifiers and applicative morphology. Thus, applicative verbs can be classified into two types, namely atelic and non-atelic applicative verbs. The post-verbal ‘applied object’ position /applicative adverbial position can be called the ‘applied constituent position’. Key words: Applicative morphology, telicity, metathesis, applicative adverbial.

Komo (Koman) of Ethiopia has an obligatory paradigm of deictic directional (dd) verb morphology that, among its functions, indicates direction of motion relative to a deictic reference point, associated motion and grammatical aspect when collocated with verb roots of different semantic classes. The semantic components of a motion event underlie the Komo dd system and the grammatical aspect of a predicate can be directly mapped to the bounded/unbounded path profile. The Associated Motion function contains a bounded path which entails arrival at or departure from a reference point and, as a result, imparts aspectual telicity to the predicate. The Direction function by contrast, contains an unbounded path that expresses motion towards a reference point and does not impart aspectual telicity. Further, some morphemes express exchoativity, or the ‘exiting’ of a state, a rare if unattested grammatical category.

U radu se opisuju dvije konstrukcije u hrvatskome jeziku. Jedna je obilježena objektima koji označavaju odsječke vremena, a druga objektima koji označavaju intrinzična obilježja subjekta koja se glagolskom radnjom odstranjuju. Podloga opisa dviju konstrukcija nalazi se u slavističkoj temi odnosa prefi ksacije i rezultativnosti. Glagolsku prefi ksaciju među slavistima uvriježeno je smatrati čimbenikom rijetkosti, pa čak i izostanka pridjeva u funkciji rezultativnih sekundarnih predikata u slavenskim jezicima. Autori koji predstavljaju to gledište prefi kse određuju kao semantički primarne predikatne elemente koji s glagolima čine složene predikate utoliko što determiniraju njihovo kauzativno i rezultativno značenje. Na primjeru dviju konstrukcija pokazujemo da prefi ksi nisu semantički primarni predikatni elementi. Prefiksacija je tek epifenomen složenijeg pozadinskog procesa. Da bismo objasnili potonji proces, služimo se teorijskim okvirom konstrukcijske gramatike., Th e paper deals with two specifi c constructions in Croatian, one characterized by objects that specify the period of time spent on a particular action, and the other by objects indicating the intrinsic features of the subject which are somehow removed through the verb’s action. Studying the two constructions is relevant for understanding the relationship between prefi xation and resultativity. In the study of Slavic languages verbal prefi xation is widely viewed as the main cause of rare occurrence or complete absence of adjectives in the function of resultative secondary predicates. Authors who share this view defi ne prefi xes as core predicators that trigger lexical subordination of verbs with which they form complex predicates thus determining their causative or resultative meaning. However, our analysis of the two constructions mentioned above shows that prefi xes are not core predicators. On the contrary, prefi xation tied to causative and resultative predicates appears to be just an epiphenomenon of a more complex background process. To explain this process, we rely on the theoretical framework and methods of Construction Grammar.

In this paper, I give an account of degree achievements in Southern Aymara, an understudied Andean language. I focus on degree achievements that are derived from gradable bases by means of the verbal suffix -cha, e.g., llusk’a -cha-na ‘to straighten’ or q’anu -cha-na ‘to dirty’. I provide arguments suggesting that Aymara should be analyzed as a degree language (Bochnak in Semant Pragmat 8(6):1–48, 2015b). I further propose an analysis of Aymara degree achievements in terms of a differential measure function (Kennedy and Levin, in: McNally, Kennedy (eds) Adjectives and adverbs: syntax, semantics and discourse. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 156–182, 2008) The main point argued for in this paper is that this language has two degree morphemes in competition (Heim, in: von Stechow, Wunderlich (eds) Semantik: ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenossischen Forschung. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 487–535, 1991) combining with degree achievements, namely, a covert verbal positive morpheme v.pos and the overt morpheme -su. The latter restricts the standard of comparison to change where maximal values are reached, so it is preferred over v.pos when such values are targeted. v.pos is thus felicitous when the maximum is not reached. I propose an initial typology that distinguishes how telicity is achieved cross-linguistically when degree achievements are considered.

In this paper, I argue that mass deadjectival nominalizations like belleza ‘beauty’ encode imperfective states, which explains why they are compatible with temporal modifiers, but not with aspectual ones. In contrast to what is claimed in Fabregas & Marin (2012), this paper provides empirical evidence that Spanish nominalizations can encode not only information related to lexical aspect (i.e. (a)telicity), but also information related to viewpoint aspect (i.e. (im)perfectivity). My analysis is based on Anderson's & Morzycki's (2015) model on gradability, in which gradable adjectives express states and degrees are derived from state-kinds, which allows accounting for the properties of mass deadjectival nominalizations compositionally, insofar as they inherit the adjectival properties.

Light verb constructions (LVCs) in English and Romance languages are somewhat unique crosslinguistically because LVCs in these languages tend to have semantically similar synthetic verb counterparts (Zarco 1999): e.g. make an appearance and appear. This runs contrary to assumptions in linguistic theories that two competing forms are rarely maintained in a language unless they serve distinct purposes (e.g. Grice 1975). Why do English LVCs exist alongside counterpart synthetic verbs, especially given that synthetic verbs are arguably the more efficient form (Zipf 1949)? It has been proposed that LVCs serve an aspectual function (Prince 1972, Live 1973, Wierzbicka 1982, Tanabe 1999, Butt & Geuder 2001), as there are telic LVC counterparts (e.g. have a thought) of atelic verbs (e.g. think). This proposal has been difficult to evaluate without a large-scale resource providing a markup of both LVCs and counterpart verbs. Addressing this gap in resources, the present research describes the development of guidelines for LVC annotation in the English PropBank (Bonial & Palmer 2015). The focus of this article is the subsequent analysis of these annotations, aimed at uncovering corpus evidence of what contexts call for the use of an LVC over a synthetic verb. The corpus study shows that the general function of LVCs is not an aspectual one and provides distributional evidence that the ease and variety with which LVCs can be modified is the general motivating factor for the use of an LVC.

This paper shows that the property of ‘quantization’ motivates object movement to the projection of Aspect, giving rise to telic interpretation. It will be shown that the telic aspect, once coupled with the structural architecture developed by Borer (2006) and Miyagawa (2013), effectively captures mitigation effects that arise in sentences containing temporal or goal PPs/adverbs. This approach, if retained, will provide substantial support for Boskovic’s (2004) observation that quantifiers cannot be floated in θ-positions, in full accord with the minimalist assumptions.

Learning to mark for tense in a second language is notoriously difficult for speakers of a tenseless language like Chinese. In this study we test two reasons for these difficulties in Chinese–English sequential bilingual children: (1) morphophonological transfer (i.e., avoidance of complex codas), and (2) interpretation of –ed as an aspect marker of completion, like the Mandarin –le. Mandarin–English bilingual children and age-matched monolinguals did a cartoon retell task. The verbs used in the stories were coded for accuracy in English, telicity, and suppliance of –ed or –le. The results were consistent with morphophonological transfer: the bilingual children were more accurate with irregular past forms in English than regular forms. The results were also consistent with the bilingual children's interpretation of –ed as an aspect marker: most of their production of –ed was on telic verbs. We discuss possible reasons for the children's interpretation of –ed as an aspect marker.

Fabienne Martin's research is financially supported by DFG award AL 554/8-1 (Leibniz-Preis 2014) to Artemis Alexiadou and grant agreement No 856421 (LeibnizDream) from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This paper addresses Spanish optional se constructions, which host a reflexive clitic serving as a non-selected argument in transitive structures (comer(se) la manzana 'eat.REFL the apple'). On the basis of new experimental data, we argue against the view that in such constructions se is similar to particles of exhaustivity such as up in English. We instead propose that se is a pronoun merged as an argument of a low applicative, conveying a locative relation 'in(x; y; s)' between the binder of the reflexive x and the nominative DP y ('x is in y in s'), or, for a subset of speakers, as an argument of a high applicative, introducing a (direct) experiencer of the verbal event. It is shown how this proposal accounts for the variability in the acceptance of optional se constructions across speakers and verb types as well as for the inferences of enriched or unaided agency, affectedness and counter-expectation that have been argued to be triggered by the se-variant of these constructions.

The aim of this work is to investigate the use of Spanish Preterit and Imperfect by English speaking learners of L2 Spanish following the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1996; Díaz, Bel, & Bekiou, 2008; Domínguez, Tracy-Ventura, Arche, Mitchell, & Miles, 2013; González, 2003, 2013; Montrul & Slabakova, 2002). The article studies how aspectual features bias Preterit and Imperfect in initial, intermediate and advanced learners. The results, based on an approximate binomial distribution analysis, confirm that Preterit is the preferred past, which supports L1 transfer (Salaberry & Shirai, 2002). The results also verify that Preterit is biased by dynamicity and punctuality at all levels. Telicity effects come into play in intermediate levels, while punctuality effects are reinforced in advanced levels. Stativity influences the use of Imperfect in intermediate level, which reveals that there are differences in the bias effect regarding proficiency level.

La existencia en español de construcciones transitivas con predicados estativos y un clítico paradigmático no reflexivo y concordado en número y persona con el sujeto (“El alumno se supo la lección”) ocasiona serias dificultades a aquellas propuestas según las cuales un clítico con estas características en construcciones oracionales transitivas o es un operador aspectual que aparece exclusivamente en predicados télicos y durativos, o es un operador aspectual no ligado a la telicidad, o equivale a un marcador que refleja ya sea cierta implicación del sujeto oracional, ya sea una mayor relación entre sujeto y OD. Además de plantear cuáles son esas dificultades, son objetivos de este artículo explicar 1) la compatibilidad de unos predicados estativos transitivos con este clítico frente a la incompatibilidad de otros; 2) la compatibilidad de determinados predicados estativos transitivos con este clítico con algunos OD que son plurales escuetos, y 3) la compatibilidad de determinados predicados estativos transitivos con este clítico con OD que no son plurales escuetos y carecen de determinación explícita. The existence in Spanish of transitive constructions with stative predicates and a non-reflexive paradigmatic clitic that agrees with the subject in number and person (El alumno se supo la lección) raises important problems for accounts where this clitic is an aspectual operator that either only occurs with telic and durative predicates or is not related to telicity, or is a marker that conveys some involvement on the part of the sentence subject or a closer relationship between subject and DO. Beside reviewing these problems, the article sets out to explain: 1) the (in)compatibility of some transitive stative predicates with this clitic, 2) the compatibility of certain transitive stative predicates with the clitic when the relevant DOs are bare plurals, and 3) the compatibility of certain transitive stative predicates with the clitic when their DOs are not bare plurals and lack explicit determiners.

This paper aims at identifying interrelationship between a semantic feature of stativity with verbal aspectual opposition progressive/non-progressive in English. Beside telicity and duration, stativity is one of the three distinctive semantic features and expresses the existance of some quality in time without investing any energy, therefore it represents situations without dynamic segments. The procedure of creating aspectual verbal possibilities in English is based both on semantic and syntactic grounds so this paper also applies selectional restrictions that stative verbs impose when choosing aspectual form. Therefore, this paper establishes and analyses the correlation between stativity and aspectual verbal opposition on the corpus excerpted from the modern English novel.

International audience; This article considers the identification and classification of salient Aktionsart properties in Anindilyakwa (Gunwinyguan, Australia). Through examining the grammatically permissible (and impermissible) distribution and co-occurrence of various temporal adverbials and morpho-syntactic structures, I identify key Aktionsart properties exhibited in Anindilyakwa. I demonstrate that the properties of dynamism and atomicity are particularly important to consider in this language, while telicity is less prominent. The detailed description and analysis of Aktionsart properties in this article contributes towards a more nuanced understanding of the aspectuo-temporal system of Anindilyakwa. In addition, it provides novel perspectives with which to consider cross-linguistic aspectuo-temporal research, particularly with a focus on smaller-scale, under-described languages.

Predicates like "coloring-the-star" denote events that have a temporal duration and a culmination point (telos). When combined with perfective aspect (e.g., "Valeria has colored the star"), a culmination inference arises implying that the action has stopped, and the star is fully colored. While the perfective aspect is known to constrain the conceptualization of the event as telic, many reading studies have demonstrated that readers do not make early commitments as to whether the event is bounded or unbounded. A few visual-world studies tested the processing of telic predicates during online sentence processing, demonstrating an early integration of aspectual and temporal cues. By employing the visual-world paradigm, we tested the incremental processing of the perfective aspect in Italian in two eye-tracking studies in which listeners heard durative predicates in the perfective form in a scenario showing a completed and a non-completed event. Differently from previous studies, we compared telic durative predicates such as "coloring-the-star" to punctual predicates such as "lighting-the-candle." While for punctual predicates, the inferences of telicity (the event has a telos) and of culmination (the telos is reached) are lexically encoded in the perfective verb, for durative predicates, the degree of event completion (visually encoded) needs to be integrated with perfective aspect (linguistically encoded) for the culmination inference derivation. By modulating the interaction of visual and linguistic stimuli across the two experiments, we show that the verb's perfective aspect triggers the culmination inference incrementally during sentence processing, offering novel evidence for the continuous integration of linguistic processing with real-world visual information.

This paper discusses degree achievements cross-linguistically, focusing on the maximalization possibilities reported in the literature. I introduce a four-way typology where languages differ regarding whether they overtly mark (with lexical items) degree maximalization (i.e., the scale of the degree achievement is bounded in an event) and/ or event maximalization (i.e., there is a unique maximal event in the denotation of the predicate), and account for the variation. The four types are represented by English, which does not overtly mark degree or event maximalization; Southern Aymara, which overtly marks degree but not event maximalization; Polish, which overtly marks event maximalization only; and Hungarian, which overtly marks event maximalization with an additional requirement regarding the presence of lexical maxima (if available). I provide tests to distinguish degree vs. event maximalization. My proposal is implemented in Beavers’s (2011, 2012) Figure/Path Relation model, making use of a restricted set of lexical items to account for the variation. I suggest that the typology examined is exhaustive, and discuss the variation in telicity contrasts that arise as a result of different maximalization possibilities.

Στόχος της διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η περιγραφή της τελικότητας στην Ελληνική καθώς και της διαδικασίας κατάκτησής της στη μητρική γλώσσα. Ο όρος τελικότητα προέρχεται από τον Αριστοτελικό όρο τέλος που αναφέρεται στην ολοκλήρωση μιας ενέργειας. Η τελικότητα κωδικοποιείται εν μέρει ή πλήρως σε κάθε γλωσσική έκφραση μέσω της ρηματικής όψης, του ρηματικού ποιού ενεργείας και των συμπληρωμάτων του ρήματος. Ο συνδυασμός αυτών των χαρακτηριστικών στο διεπίπεδο σύνταξης/πραγματολογίας δίνει την τελική ή μη τελική ερμηνεία της πρότασης. Η καταγραφή και ανάλυση των συντακτικών και πραγματολογικών χαρακτηριστικών της τελικότητας έγινε μέσω της εξέτασης της σχέσης ρημάτων που εκφράζουν δραστηριότητα με τα ορίσματά τους (π.χ. γράφω, τρέχω) και του επιμερισμού των δομικών και των πραγματολογικών λειτουργιών που συνηγορούν στην έκφραση της τελικότητας. Συγκεκριμένα, η ρηματική όψη αντιμετωπίστηκε ως ένα γραμματικοποιημένο, (σημασιολογικά) ερμηνεύσιμο χαρακτηριστικό στα ρήματα κίνησης στην Ελληνική ενώ για την τελικότητα υιοθετήσαμε την άποψη ότι προϋποθέτει την συνάρτηση γραμματικών, μορφολογικών, θεματικών και εννοιολογικών χαρακτηριστικών και επομένως εμφανίζεται στο διεπίπεδο σύνταξης-πραγματολογίας. Στην πειραματική έρευνα εξετάστηκαν τρεις κατηγορίες ρημάτων που εκφράζουν ‘δραστηριότητα’: α) ρήματα με ένα όρισμα: ανεργαστικά και αναιτιατικά, β) μεταβατικά ρήματα με συμπλήρωμα ονοματική φράση και γ) ρήματα κίνησης με συμπλήρωμα προθετική φράση. Έξι ρήματα από κάθε κατηγορία εξετάστηκαν σε δύο συνθήκες με μεταβλητή τη ρηματική τους όψη [+/- συνοπτικό]. Οι προτάσεις με τελική ερμηνεία παρουσιάστηκαν με ένα εμφανές καταληκτικό σημείο για τη δραστηριότητα και οι προτάσεις με μη τελική ερμηνεία χωρίς το καταληκτικό σημείο. Στο πείραμα κατανόησης συμμετείχαν 150 παιδιά και 40 ενήλικες και στο πείραμα παραγωγής 250 παιδιά και 40 ενήλικες. Τα κύρια ερευνητικά ερωτήματα αφορούσαν την ανάπτυξη της σύνδεσης της ρηματικής όψης με την τελικότητα και τις αναπτυξιακές διαφορές μεταξύ μεταβατικών ρημάτων με συμπλήρωμα ονοματική φράση και ρημάτων κίνησης με συμπλήρωμα προθετική φράση. Η υπόθεση εργασίας σύμφωνα με την οποία η τελικότητα είναι χαρακτηριστικό του διεπιπέδου σύνταξης/πραγματολογίας και ως εκ τούτου προϋποθέτει την ανάπτυξη και των δύο γνωστικών πεδίων επιβεβαιώθηκε από τα αποτελέσματα.

The paper offers an analysis of selected uses of the Polish perfective and imperfective in the non-past indicative and in the imperative construction. In uses under consideration, both the perfective and the imperfective refer to a single complete occurrence of a telic process and, hence, the semantic contrast between them is not a matter of distinctions such as boundedness/unboundedness, completion/non-completion, telicity/atelicity, punctuality/durativity, etc. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of selected corpus examples which is aimed at elucidating the nature of the relevant contrast. The claim advocated in the course of the discussion is that the perfective/imperfective contrast may play a role in the system of clausal grounding in Polish, as it may convey the idea of, respectively, epistemic and/or effective non-immediacy/immediacy of the profiled process relative to the ground.

As the core of a sentence, a verb can be analysed using syntax and semantic interface based on the verb situation type. One aspect in the verb situation is telicity which shows the process shown by the verb whether involve a bounded activity or unbounded activity with inherent endpoint. This paper analyzes the verbs telicity based on the verb classes proposed by Vendler (1967) namely achievement, accomplishment, activites and states. The aim of the analysis is to find the semantic feature of a verb using syntax and semantics interface. The data in form of sentences were taken from Hemingway’ short story The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. The analysis employs descriptive qualitative method using observation technique. The data was presented in both formal and informal method. The results show that ity can be analysed both syntactically and semantically. Accomplishment and achievement verbs are while activities and state verbs are a.

A fundamental aspect of human cognition is the ability to parse our constantly unfolding experience into meaningful representations of dynamic events and to communicate about these events with others. How do we communicate about events we have experienced? Influential theories of language production assume that the formulation and articulation of a linguistic message is preceded by preverbal apprehension that captures core aspects of the event. Yet the nature of these preverbal event representations and the way they are mapped onto language are currently not well understood. Here, we review recent evidence on the link between event conceptualization and language, focusing on two core aspects of event representation: event roles and event boundaries. Empirical evidence in both domains shows that the cognitive representation of events aligns with the way these aspects of events are encoded in language, providing support for the presence of deep homologies between linguistic and cognitive event structure.

Resultative constructions show a wide range of cross-linguistic variation, which may pose nontrivial challenges to L2 learners. This study investigates how syntactic and semantic differences betwee...

This article investigates optional ergative marking in Tujia, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in south-central China. It is shown that the Agent in Tujia is optionally marked, and that the use of the optional ergative marker ko35 is multifunctional. It is used to disambiguate the semantic role of Agent, to emphasize agency, and to focalize an Actor in a discourse context. Several factors, including word order, telicity, perfectivity, verbal semantics, information structure and discourse-pragmatics, play a role in determining the use or non-use of the ergative marker. Secondly, the historical source of the optional ergative marker is explored. It is hypothesized that the morpheme lie21 was originally an instrumental marker whose meaning became extended to encompass the marking of ergativity. Later, this morpheme lost its ergative meaning, after the third person singular pronoun ko35 acquired the role of optional ergative marker, as a result of language contact with Chinese. The analysis may enhance the understanding of the variety of uses and the sources of ergative case marking in Tibeto-Burman languages in general.

The paper examines a class of Estonian transitive verbs referred to as ‘partitive verbs’: verbs that appear with partitive-marked objects. This class is more heterogeneous than previously assumed. Firstly, there are verbs that cannot have total (accusative) objects. Secondly, there are verbs that can have total objects in lexically restricted combinations. Thirdly, some verbs combine freely with a boundarymarking element. Finally, there is a group of less studied verbs that normally represent unbounded situations but nevertheless allow total object marking if the context highlights the boundary of a situation or result. We clarify the conditions of partitive verbs appearing with total objects, hoping to enhance Estonian L2 instruction and lexicography. *** Piiride seadmisest: partitiivverbid eesti verbiklassifikatsioonides Artiklis vaatleme eesti keele transitiivverbide klassifikatsioonides partitiivverbideks liigitatud verbe, keskendudes nn pehmetele partitiivverbidele. Kasutusnaidetest ilmneb, et pehmete partitiivverbide naol on tegemist heterogeensema verbiklassiga, kui on eelnevate uurimuste alusel jareldatud. Taiustame seniseid klassifikatsioone eesmargiga tapsustada verbide esitust eesti keele oppesonaraamatuis. Eristame partitiivverbide klassi, mis tuupjuhtudel valjendavad tulemuseta ja piiritlemata situatsioone, ent esinevad siiski ka totaalobjektiga, kui diskursuse kontekst tostab esile situatsiooni piirid ja tulemuse.

The acquisition of aspect in L2 is influenced by the properties of the lexical-aspectual class, coercion at the syntactic-pragmatic interface and grounding information (foreground and background) in discourse. This paper addresses how these linguistic functions influence the acquisition of Spanish aspectual past tenses (pretérito indefinido and pretérito imperfecto) by Mandarin Chinese learners. The results show that activities and accomplishments are more problematic for learners to acquire and that dynamicity, rather than telicity, plays a determinant role for Chinese learners. Moreover, factors concerning coercion – a pragmatic and discourse mechanismremain difficult to master at C1. Our results also support the Discourse Hypothesis, though showing different patterns of association (lexical and grammatical aspect) across levels. We conclude that an integrative perspective gives a better account of the acquisition process of Spanish aspectual tenses