MacDonald Jonathan E. The Syntactic Nature of Inner Aspect: A Minimalist Perspective

Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2008. — 241 p. — (Linguistik Aktuell / Linguistics Today, Vol. 133). — ISBN10: 9027255164; ISBN13: 978-9027255167.This book explores the syntactic nature of inner aspect from a minimalist perspective. It begins with the new observation that there are two independent properties at play in English inner aspect: the object-to-event mapping and event structure. From a discussion of English statives and Russian, it is concluded that the former property is variant and the latter universal; a minimalist conception of language variation arises naturally in this context. Additionally, an exploration of a lexical derivational approach to achievements leads to the expectation that there are no accomplishments in the lexicon. A detailed look at idioms suggests that this expectation is met. These results support the division of labor between an operative lexicon and narrow syntax in aspectual composition; this naturally poses a problem for (neo-)constructional approaches to inner aspect. Finally, one conclusion reached about the syntactic nature of inner aspect regards the object-to-event mapping: it is a purely syntactic phenomenon.An introduction to the syntax of inner aspect
A brief introduction to inner aspect
Two independent properties of English inner aspect
Previous syntactic accounts of inner aspect
An outline of the present syntactic account of inner aspect
The rest of the book
The syntax of eventives 1: An aspectual projection
The durative phrase
An aspectual projection between vP and VP
The domain of aspectual interpretation
From chapter two to chapter three
The syntax of eventives 2: Event features
Event structure
Event features
The interaction of the object-to-event mapping and event structure
From chapter three to chapters four and five
A lexical derivation of achievements
A Hale & Keyser lexical derivational approach to achievements
More lexical representational structures
A prediction: The lack of accomplishments in the lexicon
The consequences of this approach to achievements
Minimalist variation in inner aspect
Intra-linguistic variation: English statives vs. eventives
Optional variation: Stative-eventive alternations in English
Cross-linguistic variation: Russian vs. English
Minimalist variation and Bulgarian briefly
The autonomy of inner aspect
Lexical autonomy
Syntactic autonomy
Semantic autonomy
Concluding remarks
A consideration of other aspectual facts
Resultatives
Conatives
Psych-achievements
Another aspectual property of NPs
The syntactic nature of inner aspect and some speculative remarks
Summarizing the system
The syntactic nature of inner aspect
Some speculative remarks