'Punctuality' and Verb Semantics

Stefan Engelberg: 'Punctuality' and Verb Semantics

The distinction between punctual and durative verbs shows up in many different 
semantic and syntactic phenomena, among them valence alternations, the 
formation of inchoatives, the distribution of aspectual adverbials, and the 
occurrence and interpretation of verbs in the progressive aspect. This is 
captured by introducing a certain kind of lexical event structure 
representation for verbs. It is furthermore argued in the paper that the use of 
predicates like 'punctual' in lexical representations of verbs must be 
accompanied by a thorough clarification of the logical type and the truth 
conditions of these predicates in order to avoid circularity. The meaning of 
'punctuality' is linked to the psychological time concept of a 'cognitive 
moment', which is an interval of about three seconds that has proven relevant 
for the perception of events and the structuring of human actions. Punctual 
verbs are conceived of as verbs which refer to events that do not exceed the 
length of a cognitive moment in their basic reading.

Key words: lexical semantics, punctual verbs, event structure, progressive aspect, aspectual adverbials, valence alternation, inchoatives, German, English, time and language