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In studies on Russian verbal Aspect, aspectual pairs in which the imperfective verb is lacking its semantic feature considered prototypical, i.e. durativity, are defined ‘trivial’nye’ (trivial). According to the classification proposed by Bertinetto for Italian predicates (1986), the semantic class that comes closest to this group is that of transformative verbs. The aim of the present study is to investigate and compare, in terms of actionality, the behaviour of two predicates belonging to the above categories, i.e., the Russian verb prichodit’ (to come) and the corresponding Italian verb arrivare, in particular when they occur, respectively, in the present imperfective and in the progressive periphrasis (stare + gerund). A corpus-based analysis shows how both predicates present peripheral usages in these two forms, losing their typical trait of non-durativeness. What determines the occurrence of these particular uses are, for both verbs, metaphorical values and subjects’ lack of agentivity. As for the Italian verb arrivare, sometimes, contextual elements suggesting a processual interpretation also play a role.

In this paper we use Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005), especially its semantic representation through the lexical aspect or Aktionsart, and we apply this linguistic model to samples for each stage from the PerLA corpus of Spanish patients with Alzheimer’s disease (Pérez Mantero, 2014). Thus, we analyze the frequency and relative distribution of verbs in these samples using statistical measures: average, median, mode, variance, standard deviation, interquartile range and coefficient of variation. Our results show that patients systematically use states as preferred Aktionsart with respect to the rest of types of verbs, as well as the existence of some variability in accomplishments and active accomplishments and the absence of specific types of causative verbs. Among our explanations, we highlight that states have an easier way of cognitive processing and causative verbs express static states of affairs, disconnected from one another., En este artículo usamos la Gramática del Papel y la Referencia (Van Valin y LaPolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005), en especial su representación semántica por medio del aspecto léxico o Aktionsart, y aplicamos este modelo lingüístico a muestras por etapas del corpus PerLA de pacientes españoles con Alzheimer (Pérez Mantero, 2014). Con ella, analizamos la frecuencia y distribución relativa de los verbos de estas muestra mediante estadísticos básicos: media, moda, mediana, varianza, desviación típica, rango intercuartílico y coeficiente de variación. Nuestros resultados señalan un uso sistemático de los estados como Aktionsarten preferente respecto al resto de tipos de verbos, así como la existencia de cierta variabilidad en las actividades y las realizaciones activas y la ausencia de tipos concretos de verbos causativos. Entre las explicaciones que ofrecemos, destacamos que los estados tienen una mayor facilidad de procesamiento cognitivo y los verbos causativos expresan estados de cosas estáticos, desconectados entre sí.

Acquisition of the perfective marker -le in Mandarin Chinese is a daunting task for second language learners. To date, there has been no consensus on what it is about -le that makes it such a challenge to learners. This study investigates the acquisition of -le from both a lexical perspective and a discourse perspective. I test two hypotheses: (1) whether the distribution of -le in lexical aspectual class, i.e., state, activity, accomplishment, and achievement, plays a role in the way L2 learners use -le, as predicted by the Aspect Hypothesis; and (2) whether the distinction in discourse between foregrounding and backgrounding plays a role in the way L2 learners use -le, as predicted by the Discourse Hypothesis. Three proficiency levels of participants participated in an oral storytelling task: Frog, Where Are You, in Chinese. The results show that both the Aspect Hypothesis and the Discourse Hypothesis are supported. All of the participants used -le to distinguish foreground and background, and they also used -le predominately with achievements. Lower-level participants differ from higher-level speakers in that they produced much less -le with bounding materials in foreground with achievement predicates. It is concluded that the challenge of acquiring -le comes from the syntactic complexity of -le with bounding materials, rather than lexical aspect or grounding.

En aquest article s’estableix una diferència entre la redundància com a mera repetició (R1) i la redundància com a forma de concordança lèxica (R2) per analitzar les expressions subir para arriba ’pujar cap a dalt’, bajar para abajo ’baixar cap a baix’, salir para afuera ’sortir cap a fora’ i entrar para adentro ’entrar cap a dins’. Primer, s’extreuen les ocurrències d’aquestes expressions de dos corpus i, a continuació, es classifiquen tenint en compte el component del moviment focalitzat (Meta, Trajectòria, Via o Direcció) i el tipus de redundància (R1 o R2). En l’anàlisi de la R2, s’especifica quin matís semàntic aporta l’adjunt preposicional, que deixa d’interpretar-se com a redundant (R1). S’examinen també les implicacions teòriques que comporta la distinció R1-R2; entre elles, la gradació de les expressions redundants, la naturalesa del significat aportat, proposicional a la R2 i comunicatiu a la R1, i la relació del significat proposicional amb les propietats aspectuals dels predicats verbals., This article establishes a difference between redundancy as mere repetition (R1) and redundancy as a form of lexical agreement (R2) in order to analyse the expressions subir para arriba ‘to go upwards’, bajar para abajo ‘to go downwards’, salir para (a)fuera ‘to go outwards’ and entrar para (a)dentro ‘to go inwards’. First, the occurrences of these expressions are extracted from two corpora and then classified according to the motion component focused on (Goal, Trajectory, Via or Direction) and the type of redundancy (R1 or R2). In the analysis of R2, we specify the semantic nuance provided by the prepositional adjunct, which ceases to be interpreted as redundant (R1). In addition, the theoretical implications of the R1-R2 distinction are examined, including the gradation of redundant expressions, the nature of the meaning conveyed, propositional in R2 and communicative in R1, and the relationship of the propositional meaning to the aspectual properties of verbal predicates., En este artículo se establece una diferencia entre la redundancia como mera repetición (R1) y la redundancia como forma de concordancia léxica (R2) para analizar las expresiones subir para arriba, bajar para abajo, salir para (a)fuera y entrar para (a)dentro. Primero, se extraen las ocurrencias de estas expresiones de dos corpus y, a continuación, se clasifican teniendo en cuenta el componente del movimiento focalizado (Meta, Trayectoria, Vía o Dirección) y el tipo de redundancia (R1 o R2). En el análisis de la R2, se especifica qué matiz semántico aporta el adjunto preposicional, que deja de interpretarse como redundante (R1). Se examinan también las implicaciones teóricas que conlleva la distinción R1-R2; entre ellas, la gradación de las expresiones redundantes, la naturaleza del significado aportado, proposicional en la R2 y comunicativo en la R1, y la relación del significado proposicional con las propiedades aspectuales de los predicados verbales.

The verb and its complement have their specific contributions to the meaning of predicate. Sometimes, the verb takes a more modest share than the complement in expressing the predicate; such verbs are referred to as light verbs. However, the degree of the lightness of the verbs is neither systematic nor predictable in verb constructions. We aim to investigate the lexical aspects of the Persian light verbs “zadan” (to hit), “dǎdan” (to give), and “xordan” (to eat) based on Huddleston and Pullum’s Model (2002). There are many verbs that lend themselves to light verb constructions. The data are collected from the Updating Persian Corpus consisting of 48M words. To this end, we extracted all light verbs in the sentences stored on the Updating Persian Corpus using the AntConc software based on Mansouri’s approach (2013). The sampling was done using random sampling method that has scientific validity and is generalizable. In random sampling, every entity of the population enjoys equal chance of inclusion in the sample. Then we analyzed the sentences containing light verbs in terms of the state and activity lexical aspects. The results were plotted in tables and figures with annotations of the verb features. For similar patterns, only one pattern was selected for further analysis. The light verb patterns were listed and analyzed in an inventory one by one. The study adopted a descriptive-analytical method and a corpus-based survey design. Descriptive research has both applied and basic aspects so that it leads to the discovery of facts and bodies of knowledge in an inductive way. An important characteristic of descriptive studies is that the researcher may not manipulate or control the status and role of variables. The researcher merely tends to study and describe what already exists. In this study, we used library research and content analysis methods.

In part due to the significant influence of Andersen's Lexical Aspect Hypothesis, research on the L2 acquisition of tense and aspect has focused primarily on the construct of aspect representative of the beginning and intermediate stages of acquisition. In the present article, I review the significance of two recent developments in the study of aspectual knowledge: the expansive view of recent research proposals (e.g., shifted effect of lexical aspect toward intermediate and advanced stages), and the focus on specific sub-constructs that provide a more precise target to assess ultimate attainment (e.g., iterativity versus habituality). I argue that the relevance of advanced stages of development of aspect is central to the analysis of L2 aspectual knowledge. To that effect, the objective of future studies needs to incorporate the explicit description of the connection between lexical aspect and viewpoint aspect, Debido a la enorme influencia de la hipótesis del aspecto léxico de Andersen, la investigación del tiempo y aspecto en una L2 se ha enfocado principalmente en el análisis de este constructo en niveles de adquisición iniciales e intermedios. En el presente artículo evalúo la importancia de dos fenómenos recientes: la expansión de la perspectiva teórica de las últimas propuestas (p.e., el creciente efecto del aspecto léxico en las etapas intermedias y avanzadas) y el estudio de sub-constructos específicos, los cuales proveen un objetivo de estudio más preciso para evaluar la adquisición completa del constructo (p.e., iteratividad y habitualidad). Argumento que es crítico expandir el análisis de los estadios más avanzados del desarrollo del concepto de aspecto. Para ello, el objetivo de futuros estudios necesita incorporar una descripción explícita de la conexión entre los constructos del aspecto léxico y el del aspecto de perspectiva

En este trabajo intentamos profundizar en el estudio de la construcción “gerundio + diminutivo”, sobre la que no parece haber mucha bibliografía especializada. Utilizaremos los dos corpora de Mark Davis que están enfocados en hablas modernas del español (“Now” y “Web/Dialects”), para ver cuán frecuente es este fenómeno, dónde y cómo se produce. A través del análisis de algunos ejemplos concretos procederemos a corroborar, primero, algunos puntos de las hipótesis ya existentes sobre esta construcción, y, sobre todo, a corregir/modificar otros que lo necesiten. Usaremos para ello distintas teorías sobre el diminutivo, el gerundio y el aspecto léxico. Veremos que la realidad dista en múltiples ocasiones de corresponderse con lo que dice las teorías, y que algunas de ellas necesitan actualizarse casi por completo., In this essay we try to go in depth in the study of the construction "gerund + diminutive", which there seems not to be a lot of specialized literature about. We will use two of Mark Davis’ corpora that are focused on modern Spanish language ("Now" and "Web / Dialects"), to see how frequent this phenomenon is, and where and how it happens. Through the analysis of some specific examples, we will proceed to corroborate, on the one hand, some of the points of the already-existing hypotheses about this construction, and, especially, on the other, to correct / modify other points that may need it. We will use different theories about diminutive, gerund and lexical aspect. We will see that reality is often far from corresponding with what theories say, and that some of them need to be updated almost completely.

This paper represents a conceptualization of L1 and L2 developmental stages of the acquisition of English past tense aspect verbal morphology. It constitutes the theoretical chapter of a PhD doctoral thesis that investigates the acquisition of past tense-aspect verbal morphology of EFL Moroccan university learners. The paper basically attempts to provide a recent review of related studies that account for the thesis topic. Primarily, it collects and reproduce the major and the prominent results that tackles the emergence of -ed and -ing past markers in the L1 and L2 context.  Various studies attempted to give an understanding the nature of English past markers in different contexts adopting longitudinal or cross-sectional method, either in the natural environment or in the instructed one. Actually, this paper attempts to provide a consistent body of literature to account for the nature of the processes responsible for the emergence the tense-aspect system which differs from L1 to EFL context. Despite discrepancies in the findings, there’s still a consensus on the route of acquisition that seems to be similar among L1 and L2 learners with some respect. Therefore, most researchers seek to investigate the emergence of past tenses marking system through approaching how the interplay between the situational aspect and viewpoint aspect took place. However, this paper will focus on a prototype-based account to explain the nature of past tense-aspect acquisition development.

Time is central to human cognition, both in terms of how we understand the world and the events that unfold around us as well as how we communicate about those events. As such, language has morphological systems, such as temporal adverbs, tense, and aspect to convey the passage of time. The current study explored the role of one such temporal marker, grammatical aspect, and its impact on how we understand the temporal boundaries between events conveyed in narratives. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants read stories that contained a target event that was either conveyed with a perfective (e.g., watched a movie) or imperfective aspect (e.g., was watching a movie) and engaged in an event segmentation task. Events described in the perfective aspect were more often perceived as event boundaries than events in the imperfective aspect, however, event duration (long vs. short) did not impact this relationship in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 demonstrated that readers were sensitive to grammatical aspect and event duration in the context of a story continuation task. Overall this study demonstrates that grammatical aspect interacts with world knowledge to convey event structure information that influences how people interpret the end and beginning of events.

Language game can take place on different language levels: phonetic, graphical, lexical-semantic, word-formative, morphological, syntax, and even pragmatics, stylistics etc. In the given article the lexical aspect of the language game is considered. Many creative language potencies are revealed most fully and brightly on the lexical-semantic level. Separate attention is paid to entimological units – lexical units which are described in the entimological dictionaries; as well as to the so called “anti-proverbs” – abnormal paremiological units.

This study explores the two Japanese temporal connectors mae ni and nai uchi ni that express the notion of ‘before.’ These have been claimed to differ in factuality and certainty (Kuno, 1973) and on pragmatic grounds in the form of speaker attitude (Hasegawa, 2015). Using The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, this study investigates the veracity of previous findings and aims to further deepen the understanding of what sets these two temporal connectors apart. Rather than in factuality or certainty, they are found to differ in lexical aspect and predicate class tendencies, as well as the ability to express minimal scales that work similarly to negative Horn scales in the case of nai uchi ni. As these are more informative the smaller they are, this also explains the pragmatic aspects that have been identified in previous research., Den här studien utforskar de två japanska temporala konnektorerna mae ni och nai uchi ni som uttrycker begreppet ’innan.’ Det har hävdats att dessa skiljer sig i faktiskhet och säkerhet (Kuno, 1973) och på pragmatiska grunder i form av talarattityder (Hasegawa, 2015). Den här studien använder sig av korpusen The Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese för att undersöka sannfärdigheten i tidigare fynd och ämnar att fördjupa förståelsen om vad som skiljer dessa temporala konnektorer. Studien finner att de inte skiljer sig inom varken faktiskhet eller säkerhet utan istället i tendenser i lexikal aspekt och predikatklasser, samt förmågan att uttrycka minimala skalor liknande negativa Horn-skalor i fallet av nai uchi ni. Eftersom dessa är mer informativa ju mindre de är förklarar detta även de pragmatiska aspekter som identifierats i tidigare forskning.

The present work investigates the aspectual structure of the so-called emotional causatives of Spanish, such as asustar‘frighten’, inquietar‘trouble’ ormolestar‘bother’. I defend the hypothesis that, in the transitive variant as well as in thereflexive construction (se), these verbs exhibit the behavior of ‘composite achievements’ (Fernández Lagunilla y De Miguel 1999, 2000). My demonstration involves a variety of aspectual proofs,which I applyto corpus data. Crucial to the hypothesis is the recognition that the notion of cause has to be separated from the eventive properties of verbs, as argued in recent publications, and as an inquiry intothe stative usesof the emotional causativeswill confirm., El presente trabajo ahonda en la estructura aspectual o Aktionsartde los llamados causativos emocionales del español, tales como asustar, inquietaro molestar. Defiendo la hipótesis deque, tanto en su variantetransitivacuanto en la construcciónpronominal (se), estos verbos exhiben el comportamiento del ‘logro compuesto’ (Fernández Lagunilla y De Miguel 1999, 2000). Así lo sugiere el conjunto de diagnósticos aspectuales,que aplico a datos de corpus. La hipótesis depende crucialmente de que el concepto de causa se deslinde de las propiedades eventivas de los verbos, como se ha argumentado en trabajos recientes y como también se verificaráexaminando los empleos estativos de los causativos emocionales.

This paper investigates ‘before’, ‘until’ and ‘as long as’ clauses in the Baltic languages in their wider areal and genealogical context in a sample of 72 modern and ancient doculects of European and Indo-European languages. In a bottom-up construction of the semantic map of ‘before’, ‘until’ and ‘as long as’ connectors from parallel text data, a fourth cluster intermediate between ‘before’ and ‘until’ with negative main clauses is identified. The typology resulting from the different overlaps of clusters locates Baltic languages in an intermediate zone between Western, Eastern, and Northern European languages. This goes hand-in-hand with a high diversity of Baltic languages in their typology of ‘before’, ‘until’ and ‘as long as’ clauses. The temporal connectors found in Baltic varieties can be classified according to whether they originate from strategies expressing temporal identity (simultaneity) or non-identity (non-simultaneity). Many connectors in Baltic derive from correlative constructions and originally express identity, but can then shift from simultaneity towards posteriority as they gradually lose their association with correlative constructions. Since temporal clauses are never atemporal and are hence incompatible with permanent states and since negation often expresses permanent states, negation—a marker of non-identity—is prone to develop non-polarity functions in ‘before’ and ‘until’ clauses. The Baltic and Slavic languages are rich in various kinds of expanded negation (translation equivalents in other languages lack negation) and expletive negation (negation does not have the function of expressing negative polarity) in ‘before’ and ‘until’ clauses. However, indefinite negative pronouns often retain their negative semantic value when standard negation in temporal clauses is expanded and semantically bleached.

This paper is an analysis of Semelfactives, the aspectual class introduced and defined by Smith (1991) as single-stage events occurring very quickly. Examples of Semelfactives include bodily events (e.g. blink, sneeze, cough), punctual actions (e.g. tap, peck, scratch, kick), internal events such as flash etc. Little research has been conducted on this event type class, to the extent that they have sometimes been reduced to Zeno Vendler’s Activities or Achievements. This being so, this dissertation aims at showing that Semelfactive predicates can be considered a basic aspectual category. In pursuing that objective, I define some basic concepts which need to be understood before proceeding to the analysis of Semelfactives (mainly related to lexical aspect and aspectual classifications). In addition, the grammatical and semantic characteristics of Activities and Achievements are shown, and linguistic evidence is provided in order to see how they both resemble and differ from Semelfactives in several respects. Moreover, by thoroughly analysing Semelfactives, I argue that they can have an iterative interpretation (i.e. Activity reading), which accounts for their compatibility with durative expressions such as the progressive, with which whereas Activities denote sets of events constructed via S-summing (characteristic of atelic predicates), sets of naturally atomic events are expressed by Semelfactives. I also explain telicity in terms of atomicity (following Rothstein 2004, 2007, 2008), claiming that Semelfactives behave as telic predicates, in the sense that they always denote an event with an inherent endpoint (due to their natural atomic nature), which accounts for the telic reading they obtain when combined with punctual expressions (i.e. at adverbials). Although I focus mainly on English Semelfactives, their equivalents in Spanish and Basque are also provided, where despite some minor differences, the same behaviour is observed. I conclude this paper by arguing th

This thesis presents an analysis of the internal structure of semelfactive predicates. I propose that the lexical aspect class of semelfactives consists of three sub-categories: (i) semelfactive predicates with internal plurality, (ii) semelfactive predicates which are uni-directional and (iii) semelfactive predicates with plurality of participants. Based on these sub-categories, I further propose that the feature of instantaneity attributed to semelfactives (Smith 1997), should not be used, as semelfactives are in actuality not instantaneous events. Furthermore, I propose that an additional feature of atomicity, which distinguishes between events with plurality and those without, should be added to the binary features of lexical aspectual classes in order to mark a distinction between semelfactives and activities. In order to arrive at these proposals this thesis examines data collected from native English speakers across a range of predicates (including predicates which have been classified as semelfactives in the literature as well as predicates which have not been analyzed in the literature). A series of tests were applied to these predicates in order to determine their potential internal structure. This thesis has several implications. First, it provides a better understanding of the feature of single occurrence which is often attributed to semelfactives (Smith, 1997). Second, it provides a means of accounting for some variation within the class of semelfactives. It has implications for the relation between semelfactives and other lexical aspect classes. Finally, it provides a series of tests which can be used both on English predicates as well as cross-linguistically to examine the internal structure of semelfactives.

The contribution deals with selected questions of the interaction between the so called “lexical aspect” (the opposition between telicity and atelicity) and the grammatical aspect (or so called “viewpoint”- aspect, i.e. the opposition between perfectivity and imperfectivity) in the languages with and without the overtly encoded aspect. The striking point of the analysis is the “complexive” meaning of aspectual forms and constructions involving lexical atelicity by indicating durativity or iterativity, on the one hand, and grammatical perfectivity by indicating the complexive perspective of the verbal action on the other. This type of aspectuality was a special feature of verbal systems with the aorist category. My claim is, thus, that the contemporary English has a special grammatical form of the “complexive aorist”, i.e. the form of Present Perfect Progressive. The Slavic languages encode this function by using the – unmarked – imperfective forms of the verbs, whereas German uses special means of encoding the very same function on the whole-clause level, such as adverbials or definite vs. indefinite or zero article., The contribution deals with selected questions of the interaction between the so called “lexical aspect” (the opposition between telicity and atelicity) and the grammatical aspect (or so called “viewpoint”- aspect, i.e. the opposition between perfectivity and imperfectivity) in the languages with and without the overtly encoded aspect. The striking point of the analysis is the “complexive” meaning of aspectual forms and constructions involving lexical atelicity by indicating durativity or iterativity, on the one hand, and grammatical perfectivity by indicating the complexive perspective of the verbal action on the other. This type of aspectuality was a special feature of verbal systems with the aorist category. My claim is, thus, that the contemporary English has a special grammatical form of the “complexive aorist”, i.e. the form of Present Perfect Progressive. The Slavic languages encode this function by using the – unmarked – imperfective forms of the verbs, whereas German uses special means of encoding the very same function on the whole-clause level, such as adverbials or definite vs. indefinite or zero article.

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This thesis analyses depictive secondary predicates and their restrictions. Depictives can be predicated of either the subject or object of a clause (e.g. John ate the fish drunk vs John ate the fish raw). These types are known as Subject-oriented and Object-oriented depictives respectively. Object-oriented depictives show more restrictions in their distribution than Subject-oriented depictives, e.g. Johni pushed Maryj drunki /∗j . This depends on the verb class, and Object-oriented depictives are generally most acceptable when predicated of objects of accomplishment verbs. This restriction has led to the claim that Object-oriented depictives are unacceptable with non-accomplishment verbs. However, this is incorrect, and there are cases of Object-oriented depictives being acceptable with non-accomplishment verbs, like e.g. John pushed the cart loaded. This thesis addresses this variable acceptability, and presents an account that captures and explains the difference in acceptability of Object-oriented depictives with different verb classes. The variable acceptability of Object-oriented (adjectival) depictives with objects of activity verbs depends on the type of adjective scale used, and this is ultimately due to the depictive’s sensitivity to quantization. Since quantization surfaces in various domains (e.g. Mass/Count in nominal, telic/atelic in verbal, Closed/Open scales in adjectival, Stage-Level/Individual-Level predicate in the predicative domain), this predicts that depictive acceptability should interact with changes in these domains, which is shown to be borne out. This can be extended to interactions with lexical aspect more generally, which captures the variable acceptability of Object-oriented depictives with different verb classes. Based on this, this thesis poses the Depictive Aspectuality Constraint: Object-oriented depictives and the sentence they are contained within must be aspectually compatible with durativity and quantization. This constraint gi

The goal of this paper is to propose a novel compositional analysis of literal and metaphoric readings in spatial prepositions and prepositional phrases. It is shown that these types of readings emerge as the result of prepositions interacting with other parts of speech, such as verbs, DPs and temporal adverbs (e.g., in one hour). Two types of understudied data are discussed. The first set of data involves the interaction of literal and metaphoric readings with lexical aspect, including their distribution with temporal adverbs (e.g., in one hour/for one hour). The second set of data involves the co-existence of literal and metaphoric readings for prepositions in coordinated structures (e.g., under the table and through the briefing). The account suggests that both readings emerge as types of possible relations that spatial prepositions can denote, as part of a complex semantic domain that includes distinct semantic dimensions.

Nuestro objetivo es demostrar que en español el verbo llegar posee dos interpretaciones en función del Aspecto de los predicados en los que aparece: inacusativa combinado con sujetos no volitivos e inergativa combinado con sujetos volitivos. Primero esbozaremos el fenómeno de la Inacusatividad y describiremos los grupos VCE y VEA. A continuación, propondremos una justificada reducción del grupo de los VM a cuatro verbos semántico-cognitivamente primitivos, entre los que se encuentra llegar, para finalmente exponer las pruebas que sustentan sus dos posibles interpretaciones., Our aim is to prove that the verb ‘llegar’ (arrive) possesses two possible interpretations in Spanish according to the lexical aspect of the predicates in which appears: unaccusative, combined with no-volitional subjects and unergative, combined with volitional subjects. Firstly, we will outline the Unaccusativity phenomenon and we will describe the VCS (Verbs of Change of State) and VEA (Verbs of Existence or Appearance) groups. Later on, we will propose a justified reduction of MV (Motion Verbs) group to four primitive semantic-cognitively verbs, among which is the verb ‘llegar’, in order to present, finally, the evidences that underpin its two possible interpretations.

The paper addresses the aspectual restriction that blocks present oriented epistemic readings for nonstative predicates. Different languages show a similar pattern, among them Spanish, which will be our focus of study. Using a formalist frame, we propose that this restriction derives from the temporal conditions of predicate evaluation and the possibility of being coordinated with the punctual speech time. States are evaluable in points of time, while events must cover an interval (Hallman, 2010). The article develops some empirical consequences of this idea, leading to the claim that two classes of states must be distinguished: pure states and interval states (Dowty, 1979; Jaque, 2014). Finally, we present the formal correlates that our hypothesis has in the syntactic-semantic representation of the verbal phrase., En este trabajo examinamos la restricción aspectual que bloquea la lectura modal epistémica orientada al presente en predicados no estativos, patrón que se verifica en distintos contextos gramaticales del español, en el que aquí nos concentramos, y otras lenguas. Proponemos, desde un marco de análisis semántico y sintáctico de tipo formalista, que esta restricción se deriva de las condiciones temporales de evaluación de los distintos predicados y su posibilidad de coordinarse con el momento de habla puntual: los estados pueden ser evaluados en puntos de tiempo, mientras los eventos requieren para ello un intervalo (Hallman, 2010). El artículo desarrolla las consecuencias empíricas de esta idea, aduciendo la necesidad de distinguir dos clases de estados: estados puros y de intervalo (Dowty, 1979; Jaque, 2014). Finalmente, se presentan los correlatos formales que la hipótesis tiene en la representación sintáctico-semántica de la frase verbal

This paper offers a unified approach to Italian spatial prepositions, such as di fronte a 'in front of', verso 'towards', in 'in', dietro a 'behind', and nel mezzo di 'in the middle of'. Three assumptions play a key role. First, Italian spatial prepositions can differ sensibly in their morphological structure, but share the same syntactic properties. Second, their sentential distribution is in part context-sensitive, thus based on the categories with which they combine. Third, their semantic contribution is layered, in the sense that it includes the meaning dimensions of both aspectual boundedness and specificity. The main result is a generalised theory on the structure and semantic interpretation of these prepositions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the inter-language development of the Spanish past tense by Taiwanese learners who learned Spanish as a second foreign language. The analysis of this study was based on the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis, which focuses on the inherent lexical aspect of verbs. We came to the following conclusions. (1) Taiwanese learners, whose first language was Mandarin Chinese, demonstrated more accurate uses of the Spanish preterite than the imperfect in written texts at their early stages of development. The acquisition of the lexical aspects of verbs in the preterite in terms of lexical aspect demonstrated the following order: achievement + accomplishment, activity and finally stative, whereas the acquisition of the imperfect showed the opposite sequence. (2) In the majority of the cases, the Taiwanese learners of Spanish demonstrated a similar pattern of acquisition of the Spanish past tense in terms of lexical aspect as that of English-speaking learner of Spanish. This paper will end with discussions on pedagogical implications of the findings and we hope this study will shed light on the current research on the second language acquisition of the Spanish tense/aspect., Este trabajo tiene como fin investigar el desarrollo de los tiempos pasados en la interlengua de los aprendices taiwaneses que aprenden español como segunda lengua extranjera. El análisis se basa en la Hipótesis de Aspecto Léxico que se centra en la importancia del aspecto léxico de los verbos. Llegamos a las siguientes conclusiones: (1) los aprendices taiwaneses de español cuya lengua materna es chino-mandarín manejan el pretérito mejor que el imperfecto en la producción escrita de los niveles iniciales de aprendizaje, el desarrollo de adquisición del pretérito indefinido es de acuerdo al siguiente orden: estado, actividad y realización+logro, mientras que para la adquisición del imperfecto los estudiantes siguen un orden contrario. (2) En la mayoría de los casos los aprendices taiwaneses de español siguen el mismo patrón de aprendizaje que los aprendices cuya lengua materna es el inglés en la adquisición del aspecto temporal. Por último, hacemos sugerencias pedagógicas correspondientes a las conclusiones deducidas para mejorar el resultado de aprendizaje. Con esto, esperamos que esta investigación represente una contribución al estudio relacionado con la adquisición del tiempo-aspecto en español.

This paper presents a novel approach on the syntax and semantics of the two spanish auxiliary verbs haber and tener and their distributional properties. It is argued that these verbs share key syntactic properties, but denote two different types of semantic relations. While tener denotes a property ascribed to the subject, haber only introduces the temporal reference of a sentence. This proposal on the semantics of tener and haber is then inserted in a broader proposal on auxiliary verbs, copulae and their distribution. It is shown that the current proposal can correctly account the distribution of tener and haber, and be seamlessly integrated with standard approaches to ser and estar.

The goal of this paper is to propose a uni!cation of two strands of research within the semantics of spatial prepositions. The !rst strand focuses on the socalled modi!cation problem, which can be stated as follows. Some, but not all spatial prepositions can occur in sentences including measure phrases, such as ten meters (Mario went ten meters in front of the car). The second strand focuses on so-called prepositional aspect: the fact that some but not all spatial prepositions can occur with temporal adverbial phrases such as in one hour. A uni!ed account is proposed, based on a minimal version of Type-Logical syntax combined with situation semantics. This uni!ed account is shown to explain and predict why, for instance, telic prepositions cannot occur with measure phrases (viz. *ten meters to the park). A compositional analysis of the contribution to lexical aspect of measure phrases, and their compositional interplay with spatial prepositions and temporal adverbials, is o"ered in detail. The main conclusion is that measure phrases do contribute to the lexical aspect reading of a sentence, but do so in fairly subtle (and compositionally-based) ways.

This experimental study investigates the second language acquisition of the four Mandarin aspect markers -le, -guo, -zhe, and zai- by native Swedish university students enrolled in Chinese language courses in Sweden. The main points of inquiry are acquisition order, the Aspect Hypothesis, the Distributional Bias Hypothesis, and the Prototype Model. The study contains a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study. Both written and spoken data are collected. The tasks in the cross-sectional study include film-retelling, picture-retelling, grammaticality judgment, fill-in-the-blank questions and comprehension. The longitudinal study includes written data produced by seven students in their tri-monthly journal. The study shows that perfective markers are produced before imperfective markers. The results of the experiments are consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis. The Distributional Bias Hypothesis can account for most of the Aspect Hypothesis but there are exceptions that indicate that other factors could also influence the acquisition process, such as L1 transfer. The Prototype Model cannot be conclusively proven. Apart from contributing to second-language acquisition theo-ries on cross-linguistic tense-aspect morphology, this study can provide empirical evidence with significant pedagogical implications for the second-language learning classroom.

The author of this article follows the assumption that aspectual analysis must take into account various elements: verbal lexeme, tense morpheme, temporal or frequency adverbs. These elements, combined with each other, either create a new meaning, different from the one of the verbal lexeme or do not. The author examines the French adverb toujours. In the case of present tense this adverb can have one of the two following functions. Firstly, as a determiner of a state verb, it assures the validation of the state in each moment of its duration; secondly, as a determiner of a perfective verb, it creates habitual meaning (an open sequence of actions).

This dissertation deals with the characteristic variation found in adult French L2 oral production. In their production of regular verbs, beginners use a short form, like parle, and a long form, like parlE, in contexts of both the present (je parl/*je parlE) and the infinitive (je veux parlE/*je veux parl). This sometimes results in target-like uses and sometimes not. The question addressed in the thesis is if there is any systematicity in learners’ use of the verb forms. In attempting to account for the variation, some previous studies have pointed at specific linguistic factors while others have suggested that the observed variation can be more or less arbitrary. One kind of systematicity has been found in earlier studies focusing on the development of past tense morphology. These studies showed that production of the forms could be predicted from the prototypical lexical aspect of the verbs. Based on French L2 studies of this kind, I present a first hypothesis stating that, also when referring to non-past contexts, i.e. present and infinitive contexts, learners use the short form with static verbs and the long form with dynamic verbs. I further propose a second, contrasting hypothesis, namely that learners are influenced by the frequency of surface forms in the input. This hypothesis emerges from a usage-based perspective (Bybee, 2008) where input frequency is a key factor (Ellis, 2002). A first investigation of 16 regular verbs in different input sources (for example, corpora of spoken French and teacher talk) is conducted in order to obtain specific data for the second hypothesis. Firstly, this examination shows that the distribution of verb forms in the input is uneven: some verbs occur more often in the short form and others more often in the long form. A gradual scale can thus be established for how frequent each of the studied verbs is in the short and the long form respectively. Secondly, I found that lexical aspect and frequency are closely related. The v