Inchoativity change of state and telicity evide

Authors: Rafael Marín Louise McNally

Publish Date: 2011/04/23

Volume: 29, Issue: 2, Pages: 467-502

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Abstract

In this paper we argue that by making a careful distinction between the notions of inchoativity and telicity we can gain new insight into how changes of state can be expressed in natural language Our argument is based on an analysis of Spanish reflexive psychological verbs SRPVs such as aburrirse ‘to be/become bored’ and enfadarse ‘to become angry’ We present diagnostics that clearly support the claim that while these verbs are inchoative they are not telic nor do they denote changes of state Additional tests indicate that these verbs are not dynamic either however we show that they lack dynamicity for different reasons aburrirse verbs because they are stative enfadarse verbs because they denote truly punctual eventualities We present a formal semantic analysis using the event ontology proposed in Piñón 1997 This analysis allows us to capture very naturally the similarities and differences between the two subclasses of SRPVs to characterize their inchoativity and to distinguish it from telicity In addition it supports a view of the Vendlerian aspectual classes on which the achievement class describes truly punctual eventualities and excludes certain predicates commonly if not universally assumed to belong to this class such as the socalled degree achievement verbs

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