Atelicity and anticausativization

Various interactions between argument structure and eventuality type are currently attracting much attention. In this paper, we contribute to the field by examining one specific type of such an interaction not much addressed in the literature so far — that between anticausativization and (a)telicity of a verbal predicate. We focus on how anticausativization affects the range of interpretations of non-culminating accomplishments, showing that proper understanding of this phenomenon has far-reaching consequences for the analysis of (the denotation of) vP. We argue that inertia modality can be introduced at different levels within vP, and this explains why different kinds of non-culmination are affected by the anticausative in different ways.

Published online: 14 July 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.158.04lyu