The Lexical Semantics of Extent Verbs

Sentences like (1a)-(1d) have attracted the attention of a n umber of authors (Jackendoff 1990, Matsumoto 1996, Talmy 1996, Gawron 2005) . Each has both an event reading and a stative reading. For example, on what I’l l call the event reading of sentence (1a), a body of fog beginning in the vicinity of th e pier moves pointwards, and on the other, stative reading, which I’ll call an extentreading, the mass of fog sits over the entire region between pier and point. The event read ing entails movement. The extent reading entails extension, the occupation of a regio n of space. Similarly, there is a reading of (1b) describing a crack-widening event, as we ll as a reading describing the dimensions of the crack, increasing in width along an axi s e tending from the north tower to the gate; and readings of (c) and (d) describing move ent events as well as readings describing the configuration of the storm front and the snow respectively. It has been observed by a number of authors (Verkuyl 1972, Dow ty 1979, Krifka 1989b, Jackendoff 1996, inter alia), that the aspectual nature of a clause, at least in the sense of the categories of accomplishment, activity, achie vem nt, and state of Vendler (1957), is not a property directly inherited from verbs. For example, the boundedness or quantization of arguments may make a verb alternate betwe en accomplishment and activity readings at the VP level: