To Finish in German and Mainland Scandinavian: Telicity and Incrementality. (14th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Spalek, Alexandra Anna; Sæbø, Kjell Johan
• Is Part Of: Journal of semantics. Volume 36:Number 2(2019:May)
• Page Start: 349
• Page End: 375
• Publication Date: 2019-03-14
• Subjects: Semantics -- Periodicals; Semantik; Semantics; Periodicals; 401.43
• DOI: 10.1093/jos/ffz003
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0167-5133

Abstract

Abstract: Among the words that describe initial or final parts of events, words describing finishing stand out in a number of ways: in a language like English, there is a transitive verb which is singularly flexible regarding the type of event retrievable from the context; in a language like German, there is no verb but there is a verbal particle; in either case, there is a requirement of telicity and there is a requirement of theme incrementality. The present paper documents these facts and offers an analysis of the verbal particle.