piñón: determiners in aspectual composition

opening

A difficulty for leading theories of aspectual composition (Krifka 1992; Verkuyl 1993) is that they make incorrect predictions when verbs of gradual change combine with certain kinds of noun phrases. Consider, for instance, the sentences in (1) and (2), which all describe accomplishments, as is confirmed by the acceptability of the time-span in-adverbials.

(1) a. Rebecca ate an apple (in five minutes).
[...]

(2) a. Rebecca ate at least three apples (in fifteen minutes).
[...]

note

I presented this paper on 19 Dec. 2005 at Amsterdam Colloquium 2005, Amsterdam, 19–21 Dec. 2005.

reference

Piñón, Christopher. 2005. Determiners in aspectual composition. Proceedings of the Fiftteenth Amsterdam Colloquium, ed. by Paul Dekker and Michael Franke, 191–196. ILLC/Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam.

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piñón: determiners in aspectual composition
last updated on 13 march 2006
christopher piñón (pinon@sdf-eu.org)

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