[Lingtyp] degrees of telicity?

Bohnemeyer, Juergen jb77 at buffalo.edu
Wed Apr 29 14:46:11 UTC 2020


Dear Sergey — The first question should perhaps be what does one assume telicity to be a property of? I treat it as a property of VPs or verbal cores. So to answer your question, I would look at the nonfinite expressions 

_walk to work_ — telic (accomplishment)
_deliver pizza_ — atelic due to underspecified quantification of _pizza_
_carry a load of potatoes_ - atelic

But, given that the sentence context is part of your question, you might be aiming for a different view of telicity. I’d be interested in hearing more about this alternative view. 

Best — Juergen

> On Apr 29, 2020, at 10:32 AM, Sergey Loesov <sergeloesov at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> what do we think about the telicity value of the following clauses?
> 
>  
> Daily he walks to work (rather than travels there by underground)
> 
> Few companies delivered pizza.
> 
>  The dead man, whose lorry carried a load of potatoes, was freed from his cab by firemen.
> 
>  
> Best wishes,
> 
>  
> Sergey  
> 
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