Telicity and detelicization

Abstract

This paper aims at characterizing the phenomenon of the detelicization, which ‘John read_perfective the book for a week’ is an example of. By this sentence we cannot affirm that John read the book through / all the book, as would indicate the telic predicate ‘to read the book’, due to the presence of ‘for a week’, an adjunct that is not committed to the end point, the telos of the event. Moreover, we contrast the phenomenon of the detelicization with another phenomenon, the “imperfect paradox”, exemplified by: ‘John was reading the book’, as well as with a possible activity interpretation of detelicized sentences. In order to characterize detelicization, we mobilize the time-aspectual model proposed by P. M. Bertinetto, which clearly separates aspectual (perfectivity, imperfectivity, and progressivity), and actional notions (or Aktionsart) (as durativity, stativity, and telicity); this is very interesting, since we consider that detelicization is a phenomenon that deal with a specific relation between aspect and actionality (as well as the “imperfect paradox”). Alongside with the distinction between aspect and actionality, we propose a specific interaction between semantic and pragmatic factors in the temporal-aspectual domain which aims at characterize the phenomenon of detelicization.