Characteristics of Achievement Progressives in English

초록

It is well attested in the Aktionsart literature that rarely can achievement predicates appear in the progressive. In particular contexts, however, they do occur in this form. This study addresses this phenomenon. To do so, it mainly attempts the following three tasks: first, it accounts for the (in)compatibility of the progressive with achievement verbs in terms of the augmentation of instantaneous achievement event structures; second, it provides a formal definition of the progressive operator for achievement predicate-based progressives; and third, based on these first two accounts, it contends that achievement progressives inherently deliver anticipation of future events as futurate progressives do. Furthermore, this study compares the subevent structures of achievement and futurate progressives. Those of the former are temporally contiguous and necessary for the attainment of their telic points, while those of the latter do not require such temporal contiguity and necessity.

키워드