Summary

These topics has been about verbs in the encoding of situations, concentrating on how what is talked about is packaged in time, part of the study of aspect. States and activities are the simplest kind. The language treats them as existing without change for periods of time, somewhat like the homogeneous “stuff ” that mass nouns denote. Contrasting with them are two kinds of situation that end when goals are reached (thus exhibiting a general similarity to the bounded entities denoted by count nouns): achievements encoding abrupt entry into a state, and accomplishments, which comprise an activity phase that culminates in an achievement. Discussion began with a subtype of accomplishments called causatives. Causatives entail a caused situation brought about by the referent of the subject. Sometimes the embedded state proposition in an achievement is carried by a visible embedded clause, for example I realized (it was after midnight) and the same is true for the achievement embedded in an accomplishment. It was shown how the semantic existence of such components – even when there is not an overt embedded clause – can be argued for by considering what various adverbial modifiers must be operating on.