Aspectual coercion

Abstract

AbstractDynamic verbs followed by the perfective aspect morpheme -le(V-le) in Chinese typically designate bounded events but can also encode states. This article proposes that the eventive designations are at the basic level and the stative interpretations are at the derived level through aspectual coercion. The categorical shifts from the former to the latter may be brought about by a number of factors, which include sentences with nonagent subject/topic, general stative sentences, and certain adverbs. These factors introduce aspectual properties incompatible with V-le's basic-level eventive interpretation. They trigger a coercion procedure to reconcile the incompatibilities, leading to aspectual reinterpretations. These findings are discussed in light of the principle of external override and the analytic nature of the Chinese language.