Telicity

For other uses oftelic,seeTelic.

Inlinguistics,telicity(/tiːˈlɪsɪti/;fromGreekτέλος'end, goal') is the property of averborverb phrasethat presents an action or event as having a specific endpoint. A verb or verb phrase with this property is said to betelic;if the situation it describes isnotheading for any particular endpoint, it is said to beatelic.

Testing for telicity in English

One common way to gauge whether anEnglishverb phrase is telic is to see whether such a phrase asin an hour,in the sense of "within an hour", (known as atime-frameadverbial) can be applied to it. Conversely, a common way to gauge whether the phrase is atelic is to see whether such a phrase asfor an hour(atime-span adverbial) can be applied to it.

Defining the relevant notion of "completeness"

Having endpoints

One often encounters the notion thattelicverbsandverb phrasesreferto events thathave endpoints,and thatateliconesreferto events or states thatdon't have endpoints.The notion ofhaving endpointsapplies toevents in the worldrather than theexpressionsthat refer to them. This is the most criticized property of this definition.In fact,everyevent or statein the worldbegins and ends at some point, except, perhaps, for states that can be described as "the existence of the universe." Certainly, John'sbeing angryhas a beginning, and, unless John is somehoweternally angry,it also has an endpoint. Thus, it is doubtful that one can define telic expressions by means of properties of the events or states that theyreferto (a very similar problem arises with the notion thatmass nounsrefer tothings that can't be counted). Thus, recent attempts at making the notion explicit focus on thewaythat telic expressionsreferto, orpresentevents or states.

Put differently, one can simply define telic verbs and verb phrases as referring to eventsconceptualized or presented ashaving endpoints, and atelic verbs and verb phrases as those conceptualized or presented as lacking endpoints.

This type of exercise can serve as a reminder of the futility of trying to link linguistic semantics to the real world without considering the intermediary agent of human cognition.

Tending towards a goal

According toGarey(1957), who introduced the term "telic", telicverbs areverbs expressing an action tending towards a goal envisaged as realized in a perfective tense, but as contingent in an imperfective tense;atelicverbs, on the other hand, areverbs which do not involve any goal nor endpoint in their semantic structure, but denote actions that are realized as soon as they begin.

Quantization and cumulativity

Perhaps the most commonly assumed definition oftelicitynowadaysis thealgebraicdefinition proposed byManfred Krifka.Krifka definestelicexpressions as ones that arequantized.Atelicones can be defined in terms ofcumulative reference.An expression 'P' can be said to bequantizedif and only if it satisfies the following implication, for any choice of x and y:

If x can be described by 'P', and y can also be described by 'P', then x is not a (mereological) proper part of y.

Suppose, for example, that John built two houses. Then each of the two building events can be described asbuilt a house.But the building of the one house isn't, and indeedcannotbe thought of a proper part of the building of the second. This contrasts with states describable as, say,walk around aimlessly.If John walked around aimlessly for two hours, then there will be many proper parts of that, that last, say 10 minutes, or 1 hour, etc. which also can be described aswalk around aimlessly.Thus, forwalk around aimlessly,there will be many choices of x and y, such that both can be described aswalk around aimlessly,where x is a proper part of y. Hence,build a houseis correctly characterized astelicandwalk around aimlesslyasatelicby this definition.Quantizationcan also be used in the definition ofcount nouns.

An expression 'P' is said to havecumulative referenceif and only if, for any choice of x and y, the following implication holds:

If x can be described as 'P', and y can also be described as 'P', then themereologicalsum of x and y can also be described as 'P'.

For example, if there is an event of John walking around from 1pm to 2pm, and another event of his walking around from 2pm to 3pm, then there is, by necessity, a third event which is the sum of the other two, which is also an event of walking around. This doesn't hold for expressions like "built a house." If John built a house from time 1 to time 2, and then he built another house from time 2 to time 3, then the sum of these two events (from time 1 to time 3) isnotan event that can be described by "built a house." Cumulativity can also be used in the characterization ofmass nouns,and in the characterization of the contrast betweenprepositionslike "to" and "towards," i.e. "towards" has cumulative reference to (sets of) paths, while "to" does not.

As an aspect

Telicityortelic aspecthas been read as agrammatical aspectlately, indicating a reached goal or action completed as intended. Languages that contrast telic and atelic actions arePirahãandFinniclanguages such asFinnishandEstonian;CzechandHungarianalso have perfective prefixespre-andmeg-,respectively, which are additionally telic.

In Finnish, the telicity is mandatorily marked on the object: theaccusativeis telic, and thepartitiveis used to express atelicity. More accurately, the accusative case is used of objects that are completely affected by the situation as presented by the speaker, whereas using partitive implies that the object is only partially affected in the situation or that the situation is framed so that the object continues to be affected outside it. The termstelicandatelicare not traditionally used in Finnish grammatical description; instead, it is customary to speak ofresultativeandirresultativesentences.

An example of the contrast between resultative and irresultative in Finnish:

Kirjoitin

wrote-1SG

artikkelin.

article-ACC

Kirjoitin artikkelin.

wrote-1SG article-ACC

"I wrote the/an article (and finished it)"

Kirjoitin

wrote-1SG

artikkelia.

article-PTV

Kirjoitin artikkelia.

wrote-1SG article-PTV

"I wrote/was writing the/an article (but did not necessarily finish it)"

The telic sentencenecessarilyrequires finishing the article. In the atelic sentence, it is not expressed whether or not the article is finished. The atelic form expresses ignorance, i.e. atelic is not anti-telic:Kirjoitin artikkelia ja sain sen valmiiksi"I was writing the article-PART and then got it-ACC finished" is correct. What is interpreted as the goal or result is determined by the context, e.g.

• Ammuin karhun– "I shot the bear (succeeded)"; i.e., "I shot the beardead".← implicit purpose
• Ammuin karhua– "I shot (towards) the bear"; i.e., "I shot at the bear (but it did not die)".

There are many verbs that correspond to only one telicity due to their inherent meaning. Thepartitive verbsroughly correspond with atelic verbs in Garey's definition, that is, the action normally does not have a result or goal, and it would be logically and grammatically incorrect to place them in the telic aspect. However, even inherently atelic verbs such asrakastaa"to love" can in semantically unusual constructions, where a kind of result is involved, become telic:

Hän

(s)he

rakastaa

love-3SG

minua.

me-PTV

Hän rakastaa minua.

(s)he love-3SG me-PTV

"(s)he loves me"

Hän

(s)he

rakastaa

love-3SG

minut

me-ACC

kuoliaaksi.

dead-TRANSL

Hän rakastaa minut kuoliaaksi.

(s)he love-3SG me-ACC dead-TRANSL

"(s)he loves me to death"

Also, many otherstative verbsthat are in terms of their meaning inherently atelic, mark their objects in the accusative case, which is the normal case for telic situations:

Tiedän

know-1SG

Pekan

Pekka-GEN

osoitteen.

address-ACC

Tiedän Pekan osoitteen.

know-1SG Pekka-GEN address-ACC

"I know Pekka's address" (not *Tiedän Pekan osoitetta... address-PART)

Muistan

remember-1SG

sinun

you-GEN

kasvosi.

face-PL.ACC.2SG_POSS

Muistan sinun kasvosi.

remember-1SG you-GEN face-PL.ACC.2SG_POSS

"I remember your face" (not *Muistan sinun kasvojasi... face-PL.PART-2SG_POSS)

Furthermore, the telicity contrast can act ascase government,so that changing the case can change the meaning entirely. For example,näin hänet(I saw him-ACC) means "I saw him", butnäin häntä(I saw him-PART) means "I met him (occasionally, sometimes, every now and then)". This is often highly irregular.

The use of a telic object may implicitly communicate that the action takes place in the future. For example,

• Luen kirjan."I will read the book"; the action can only be complete in the future.
• Luen kirjaa."I am reading a book" or "I will be reading a book"; no indication is given for the time.

Often telicity is superficially similar to the perfective aspect, and one can find descriptions such as "roughly perfective–imperfective". However, lexical pairs of perfective and imperfective verbs are found in Finnish, and this contrast can be superimposed with the telicity contrast.

External links

• Krifka, Manfred,"Origins of Telicity".Also inEvents and Grammar,Susan Rothstein (ed.), 1998,ISBN0-7923-4940-7,pp. 197–236