(149K)
Adverbs of completion such as completely, partly, and half assert to what extent a given situation type is realized, where the situation type at issue may be either a state type (in the case of adjectives, e.g., completely empty) or an event type (in the case of many verbs, e.g., completely eat the cereal). After introducing the basic data and critically reviewing two previous analyses, I propose a new approach to adverbs of completion. The hallmark of the new approach is to provide as uniform a semantics as possible for adverbs of completion in both of their uses, taking seriously the intuition that their meanings make reference to events and degrees. The analyses are cast in an event semantics supplemented by a degree semantics familiar from treatments of gradable adjectives.
In Perspectives on Aspect, Henk J. Verkuyl, Henriëtte de Swart, and Angeliek van Hout (eds.), pp. 149–166. Springer, 2005.
Paper, published version
(149K)
http://pinon.sdf-eu.org/covers/aces.html