States, long considered a homogeneous event class, have been shown to actually decompose into sufficiently
distinct aspectual types. Davidsonian and Kimian statives (
Maienborn 2008;
Rothmayr 2009), for instance, show a major contrast in presence/absence of event-related
properties, including finer-grained (sub)class distinctions. Within the Davidsonian (mixed eventive-stative) type, a novel class
has been identified using Spanish data as reference (
Marín and McNally 2011). This
class, dubbed
inchoative stative is characterized by including a left boundary (
Piñón 1997) marking the temporal onset of the state. We focus on documented Old Spanish data to argue
that non-eventive (Kimian-like) left-bounded states are also possible. We note that productive combinations of the locative copula
estar ‘be
-loc’ with past participles of specific verbs produce distinct selectional and
interpretive patterns defined by (i) pure states (homogenous spatial situation); (ii) no change-of-state/location denotation;
(iii) left boundary. If correct, data suggest that
inchoative stativity is not necessarily a Davidsonian type of
predication; and that two distinct types of inchoative statives should be carefully differentiated under (more) specific
criteria.