WHO:	Prof. Athini Sioupi , Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
TOPIC:	(A)telicity, (Im)perfectivity and aspectual verb classes
ABSTRACT:	The talk deals with three issues which underlie much research on aspect: (a) the question of (a)telicity. Krifka 1989, 1992, 1998, Dowty 1991, Tenny 1987, 1994, Verkuyl 1972, 1993, Kratzer 2004 argue in favour of the compositional nature of telicity, i.e. that (a)telicity depends not only on the verb but also on the properties of its direct argument. I will argue that incremental themes of verbs like eat, write etc that can appear as bare singular count noun in Greek affect the aspectual interpretation of the VP: whether or not a verb phrase headed by eat is telic depends not only on the direct object but also on the presence/absence of D (s. Sioupi 2002) (1): (1) a. I Anna troi portokali . (atelic) The Anna eats3.SG.IMPFV orange.ACC ‘Anna eats/is eating an orange’. b. I Anna troi ena portokali. (telic) The Anna eats3.SG.IMPFV an orange.ACC ‘Anna eats/is eating an orange’. (b) the notion of (im)perfectivity (viewpoint or grammatical/morphological aspect). I claim that in Greek (im)perfectivity and (a)telicity are not synonymous terms (s. also Sioupi 2005, Horrocks & Stavrou 2007) (2): (2) I Anna egrapse gramma (hthes). (atelic, pfv) The Anna wrote3.SG.Past_PFV letter.ACC (yesterday) ‘Anna wrote a letter yesterday’. (c) the meaning of the verb and the aspectual class of the VP it appears in (Hay et al. 1999, Beavers 2006, 2008a,b, Kennedy & Levin 2008, Rappaport Hovav 2008, Rothstein 2004). By means of tests involving different aspectual classes, such as incremental theme verbs (3), verbs of change of state (COS) (4), and degree achievements (DAs) (5), I show that it is not the morphological perfective aspect in Greek which gives rise to result interpretation (s. also Giannakidou 2003 and in press for a similar assumption for perfect in Greek), but the verb class with its complements: (3) Diavase to vivlio ja 2 ores. (incremental theme verb) read.Past_PFV the book.ACC for two hours ‘s/he read the book for two hours’. (4) Anikse tin porta ja tria lepta. (verb of COS) opened.3.SG.Past_PFV the door.ACC for three minutes ‘s/he opened the door for three minutes’. (5) Zestane ti soupa ja pente lepta. (DA) warmed.3.SG.Past_PFV the soup.ACC for five minutes ‘s/he warmed the soup for five minutes’. None of (3)-(5) have a result interpretation. ________________________________________________ Abbreviations: 3.SG = third person singular, ACC = accusative, PFV = perfective aspect, IMPFV = imperfective aspect.
WHEN:	11/5/2009 4:45:00 PM
WHERE:	Lattimore 513

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