The Unacceptability of Telic (Bounded, Quantized) Events

2.4 The Unacceptability of Telic (Bounded, Quantized) Events

In the previous section, it is argued that duo, in general, modifies the quantity of events (VPs). In this section, it will be shown that the events modified by the morpheme duo must be atelic, unbounded or cumulative.

As the first step in the discussion, I shall introduce the mass/ count distinction as a way to bring us deep into the discussion. The example in (19) illustrates the interaction between quantifying expressions and the mass/count distinction in the nominal system. Whereas much selects a mass noun (bread), many combines with a count plural (sandwiches):

(19) a. John eats too much bread/*sandwiches for breakfast.

b. John eats too many sandwiches/*sandwich/*bread for breakfast.

Count plurals and mass nouns have a lot in common. The core of their resemblance is the cumulative reference property. Many is incompatible with quantized forms: *many six students is ungrammatical. The mass/count distinction for nominals has often been compared

to aspectual differences in the verbal domain. Atelic or unbounded verbs, such as to run, are compared to mass nouns, and telic or bounded predicates, such as to run into the house, are compared to count nouns (cf. Doetjes 1997).

Situation types in Chinese, as Smith (1991) suggests, are generally distinguished as States, Activities, Accomplishments, Semelfactives, and Achievements in terms of how they differ from each other in the temporal properties of dynamism, durativity, and telicity, as summarized in (20):

(20) Basic situation types

States are static, durative (know the answer, love Mary)

Activities are dynamic, durative, atelic events (laugh, stroll in the park)

Accomplishments are dynamic, durative, telic events consisting of a process with

successive stages and an outcome (build a house, walk to school, learn Greek) Semelfactives are dynamic, atelic, instantaneous events (tap, knock, cough)

Achievements are dynamic, telic, instantaneous events (win the race, reach the top)

Here relevant to our discussion are the features of stativity and telicity. The feature of stativity bifurcates situation types into the classes of states and events. Of the four event situation types, Activities and Semelfactives are atelic, while Accomplishments and Achievements are telic. The feature [± telic] is irrelevant to states. Telic events have a natural culmination or endpoint, whereas atelic events do not, as illustrated by the contrast below.

(21) a. Edward smoked a cigarette. (Accomplishment: telic) b. Edward smoked cigarettes. (Activity: atelic)

(Smith 1991: 6)

The event depicted by (21a) is telic. The end point is specified and corresponds to the moment

the cigarette was finished. In (21b) smoking cigarettes is an atelic event that may continue indefinitely and has no such clear final point. Verkuyl (1972) argues that the situation type of a sentence is determined by a verb and its associated arguments. Doetjes (1997) also argues that the reference properties of the internal argument (quantized or cumulative) determine the boundedness properties of the VP. This phenomenon has been called measuring out by Tenny (1987, 1994). The examples in (21) show that depending on the form of the internal argument, the event is understood as atelic or telic. In the context of the bare plural cigarettes, which has cumulative (unbounded) reference, the event is atelic. In the presence of the quantized (bounded) form a cigarette, the event is telic. While internal arguments typically affect the situation type, the question of whether or not external arguments also contribute to the situation type is controversial. Dowty (1979) and Verkuyl (1972, 1993) claim that the external arguments have the same effect on the situation type as internal arguments, whereas Tenny (1994) and Doetjes (1997) argue that they do not. As Doetjes (1997) points out, they ran a lot does not imply that there were many people who ran, but that there was a lot of running taking place. Following Tenny (1994) and Doetjes (1997), I assume that in the V-duo construction external arguments do not play a role in determining the telicity (boundedness) properties of the events.

Now let us return to the V-duo construction. The V-duo construction is ungrammatical when the event denoted by the VP is telic, bounded, or quantized:

(22) a. Ni shui-duo LE. (Activity: atelic) 2SG sleep-much ASP/SFP

‘You slept quite a lot.’

b. Ni jiu he-duo LE.

2SG wine drink-much ASP/SFP ‘You drank wine quite a lot.’

c. Ni zhe-zhong jiu he-duo LE.

2SG this-CL_KD wine drink-much ASP/SFP ‘You drank this kind of wine quite a lot.’

(23) a. Ni ke-duo LE. (Semelfactive: atelic) 2SG cough-much ASP/SFP

‘You coughed quite a lot.’

b. Ni men qiao-duo LE.

2SG door knock-much ASP/SFP ‘You knocked the door quite a lot.’

(24) a. *Ni zhe-ping jiu he-duo LE. (Accomplishment: telic)

2SG this-CL_IN wine drink-much ASP/SFP b. *Zhe-kuai bingkuai rong-duo LE.

this-CL_IN ice melt-much ASP/SFP

(25) *Zhe-ge ren si-duo LE. (Achievement: telic) this-CL_IN man die-much ASP/SFP

When the situation types are activities and semelfactives, which are atelic events, the V-duo construction is grammatical, as in (22-23). When the situation types are accomplishments and achievements, which are telic events, the V-duo construction is ungrammatical, as in (24-25).

It should be noted that there are three main classes of Activities (cf. Smith 1991). One class involves an ongoing process that is unlimited in principle such as [the child sleep], [laugh]. Other Activities have uncountable internal stages [eat cherries]. There are also derived Activities, which are iterative, repetitive, or cyclic events. Repetitions of Semelfactives, Accomplishments, and Achievements may occur in derived Activities, e.g.

[Mary coughed for five minutes], [John found crabgrass in his yard all summer]. In other words, Semelfactives, Accomplishments, and Achievements may occur in an unbounded series as a multiple event. Therefore, if an appropriate context is provided, the situation type denoted by the V-duo construction can be a derived multiple-event Activity, consisting of a

series of repeated Semelfactive, Accomplishment, or Achievement events, as shown by (26-28), respectively.

(26) a. Ni ke-duo LE. (derived Activity: atelic) 2SG cough-much ASP/SFP

‘You coughed quite a lot.’

b. Ni men qiao-duo LE.

2SG door knock-much ASP/SFP ‘You knocked the door quite a lot.’

(27) a. Ni zhe-jian jifu chuan-duo LE. (derived Activity: atelic) 2SG this-CL_IN clothes wear-much ASP/SFP

‘You wore this piece of clothing quite a lot.’

b. Ni zhe-bu dianying kan-duo LE.

2SG this-CL_IN movie watch-duo ASP/SFP ‘You watched this movie quite a lot.’

c. Wo zhe-xie hua ting-duo LE.

I these word hear-much ASP/SFP ‘I heard these words quite a lot.’

d. Ni zhe-ze xiaohua shuo-duo LE.

2SG this-CL_IN joke tell-much ASP/SFP ‘You told this joke quite a lot.’

e. Men kai-duo LE.

door open-much ASP/SFP

‘The door opened quite a lot.’

f. Xue rong-duo LE.

snow melt-much ASP/SFP ‘Too much snow melted.’

(28) a. Nadal Fawang ying-duo LE. (derived Activity: atelic) Nadal French Open win-much ASP/SFP

‘Nadal won the French Open quite a lot.’

b. Keren lai-duo LE.

guest come-much ASP/SFP ‘Here came too many guests.’

c. Ren qu-duo LE.

person go-much ASP/SFP ‘Too many people went there.’

d. Shibing si-duo LE.

soldier die-much ASP/SFP ‘Too many soldiers died.’

e. Zhe-zhong qingkuang fasheng-duo LE.

this-CL_KD situation happen-much ASP/SFP ‘This kind of situation happened quite a lot.’

f. Zhe-zhong qingkuang chuxian-duo LE.

this-CL_KD situation occur-much ASP/SFP ‘This kind of situation occurred quite a lot.’

The internal arguments in (26-28) include bare NPs (27f, 28b-d), kind NPs (28e-f), proper names (28a) and NPs which can undergo the event repeatedly (26b, 27a-e). In the context of bare NPs and kind NPs, which have cumulative (unbounded) reference, the events are atelic (unbounded). In (26b, 27a-e) and (28a) the events are atelic (unbounded) because the singular event can be iterated. It should be noted that following Van Valin (1990) and Huang (2007), I regard verbs like kai ‘open’ and ronghua ‘melt’, which Haegeman (1991) labels ergatives, as unaccusatives. Hence, at D-structure men ‘door’ in (27e) and xue ‘snow’ in (27f) are the internal arguments of kai-duo ‘open-much’ and ronghua-duo ‘melt-much’ respectively.

To conclude, in the V-duo construction the event denoted by the VP must be atelic,

unbounded, or cumulative. In other words, the V-duo construction must present an Activity or a derived multiple-event Activity. In the V-duo construction the internal arguments cannot be quantized or the internal arguments can undergo the event more than once. As to the verbs, individual-level predicates, i.e., permanent state verbs, cannot be combined with duo. Verbs that can be combined with duo are stage-level predicates, most of which are activity verbs.

The reason is that individual-level predicates do not contain an event argument, while stage-level predicated do (cf. Kratzer 1989). Since the morpheme duo modifies the quantity of events, the presence of an event argument is obligatory. Thus, that individual-level predicates cannot be combined with duo is due to the lack of an event argument.