Home Linguistics & Semiotics Only states can be gradable
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Only states can be gradable

  • Zoltan Zato EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: May 7, 2024
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

In this paper I study Spanish sound emission verbs (sonar ‘to ring’) and degree achievements (enfriar ‘to cool’), which are intriguing insofar as they turn out to express gradable events, and argue that they are not gradable, although they can trigger quantity readings whereby there is a degree whose value changes throughout the event. Thus, my analysis aligns with other works on different languages (Japanese, German, Catalan and English) that have already pointed out that stativity is necessary to license gradability in certain syntactic constructions. However, my proposal goes a step forward insofar as it explicitly formulates that events cannot be gradable and explains in precise terms why gradability requires stativity. Assuming that activities are divisible into intervals and states into subintervals, I argue that gradability is only possible for the latter because it consists in measuring subintervals in intensity.


Corresponding author: Zoltan Zato, Centro de Estudios de la RAE y de la ASALE 2020–2023, Madrid, Spain, E-mail:
I thank Elena Castroviejo, Elena de Miguel and four anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on previous versions of this paper. I am also grateful to my colleagues from the Departamento de “Español al día”, especially to Pablo Moíño, María José Gil and Rubén Conde for fruitful discussion of data. All errors are my own.

References

Anderson, Curt & Marcin Morzycki. 2015. Degrees as kinds. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33. 791–2828. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9290-z.Search in Google Scholar

Ausensi, Josep & Alessandro Bigolin. 2021. Resultatives and low depictives in English. The Linguistic Review 38(4). 573–604. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2021-2076.Search in Google Scholar

Bach, Emmon. 1986. The algebra of events. Linguistics and Philosophy 9. 5–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00627432.Search in Google Scholar

Baglini, Rebekah. 2015. Stative predication and semantic ontology: A cross-linguistic study. Chicago: University of Chicago dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Beavers, John. 2011. On affectedness. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29(2). 335–370. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-011-9124-6.Search in Google Scholar

Beavers, John. 2012. Lexical aspect and multiple incremental themes. In Violeta Demonte & Louise McNally (eds.), Telicity and change of state in natural language: Implications for event structure, 23–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693498.003.0002Search in Google Scholar

Beavers, John, Michael Everdell, Kyle Jerro, Henri Kauhanen, Andrew Koontz-Garboden, Elise LeBovidge & Stephen Nichols. 2021. States and changes of state: Acrosslinguistic study of the roots of verbal meaning. Language 97(3). 439–484. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.0.0254.Search in Google Scholar

Beck, Sigrid, Sveta Krasikova, Daniel Fleischer, Remus Gergel, Stefan Hofstetter, Christiane Savelsberg, John Vanderelst & Elisabeth Villalta. 2009. Crosslinguistic variation in comparative constructions. In Jeroen van Craenenbroeck & Johan Rooryck (eds.), Linguistic variation yearbook, vol. 9, 1–66. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/livy.9.01becSearch in Google Scholar

Beltrama, Andrea & Michael Ryan Bochnak. 2015. Intensification without degrees cross-linguistically. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 33. 843–879. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9294-8.Search in Google Scholar

Bochnak, Ryan. 2013. Two sources of scalarity within the verb phrase. In Boban Arsenijević, Berit Gehrke & Rafael Marín (eds.), Studies in the composition and decompostion of event predicates, 99–123. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-5983-1_5Search in Google Scholar

Bochnak, Ryan. 2015. The degree semantics parameter and cross-linguistic variation. Semantics and Pragmatics 8(6). 1–48. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.8.6.Search in Google Scholar

Bolinger, Dwight. 1972. Degree words. The Hague: Mouton.10.1515/9783110877786Search in Google Scholar

Bosque, Ignacio. 1999. El nombre común [Common nouns]. In Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española [Descriptive Grammar of the Spanish Language], vol. I, 3–76. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Search in Google Scholar

Bosque, Ignacio & Pascual Masullo. 1998. On verbal quantification in Spanish. In Olga Fullana & Francesc Roca (eds.), Studies on the syntax of Central Romance languages, 9–63. Girona: Universitat de Girona.Search in Google Scholar

Bosque, Ignacio & Carme Picallo. 1996. Postnominal adjectives in Spanish DPs. Journal of Linguistics 32(2). 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022226700015929.Search in Google Scholar

Bylinina, Lisa & Yasutada Sudo. 2015. Varieties of intensification. Remarks on Beltrama and Bochnak ‘intensification without degrees cross-linguistically’. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 33(3). 881–895. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9291-y.Search in Google Scholar

Campos, Héctor. 1999. Transitividad e intransitividad [Transitivity and intransitivity]. In Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española [Descriptive Grammar of the Spanish Language], vol. II, 1519–1574. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Search in Google Scholar

Champollion, Lucas & Manfred Krifka. 2016. Mereology. In Maria Aloni & Paul Dekker (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of formal semantics, 369–388. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139236157.014Search in Google Scholar

Cresswell, Maxwell. 1976. The semantics of degree. In Barbara Partee (ed.), Montague grammar, 261–292. New York: Academic Press.10.1016/B978-0-12-545850-4.50015-7Search in Google Scholar

Davidson, Donald. 1967. The logical form of action sentences. In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), The logic of decision and action, 81–95. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.10.2307/jj.13027259.6Search in Google Scholar

Deal, Amy Rose & Vera Hohaus. 2019. Vague predicates, crisp judgments. In María Teresa Espinal, Elena Castroviejo, Manuel Leonetti, Louise McNally & Cristina Real-Puigdollers (eds.), Proceedings from Sinn und Bedeutung, vol. 23, 347–364. Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès): Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Search in Google Scholar

De Miguel, Elena. 1999. El aspecto léxico [Lexical aspect]. In Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española [Descriptive grammar of the Spanish Language], vol. II, 2977–3060. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Search in Google Scholar

De Miguel, Elena. 2022. Adjuntos, aspecto léxico y significado verbal: un análisis sub-léxico [Adjuncts, lexical aspect and verbal meaning: a sub-lexical analysis]. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 11(3). 193–228. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.11.3.6765.Search in Google Scholar

Demonte, Violeta. 1999. El adjetivo: clases y usos. La posición del adjetivo en el sintagma nominal [The adjective: classes and uses. The position of the adjective in nominal phrases]. In Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española [Descriptive Grammar of the Spanish Language], vol. I, 129–215. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Search in Google Scholar

Dowty, David. 1979. Word meaning and Montague grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.10.1007/978-94-009-9473-7Search in Google Scholar

Ernst, Thomas. 2016. Modification of stative predicates. Language 92(2). 237–274. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0042.Search in Google Scholar

Fábregas, Antonio. 2016. Las nominalizaciones [Nominalizations]. Madrid: Visor Libros.Search in Google Scholar

Fábregas, Antonio & Rafael Marín. 2012. The role of Aktionsart in deverbal nouns: State nominalizations across languages. Journal of Linguistics 48(1). 35–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022226711000351.Search in Google Scholar

Fábregas, Antonio & Rafael Marín. 2013. Differenciating eventivity from dynamicity: The Aktionsart of Davidsonian state verbs. Ms. The Arctic University of Norway. Université de Lille. Available at: https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/WM2NzQ5N/FabregasMarin_2013_LSRL.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

Fábregas, Antonio & Rafael Marín. 2017. On non-dynamic eventive verbs in Spanish. Linguistics 55(3). 451–488. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2017-0001.Search in Google Scholar

Fleischhauer, Jens. 2016. Degree gradation of verbs. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Francez, Itamar & Andrew Koontz-Garboden. 2017. Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198744580.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Gehrke, Berit. 2015. Adjectival participles, event kind modification and pseudo-incorporation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33(3). 897–938. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9295-7.Search in Google Scholar

Gehrke, Berit. 2017. The empirical foundation of event kinds and related issues. Mémoire de syntèse. Université Paris Diderot.Search in Google Scholar

Gehrke, Berit & Elena Castroviejo. 2015. Manner and degree: An introduction. Natural Language and Linguist Theory 33(3). 745–1055. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9288-6.Search in Google Scholar

Gehrke, Berit & Elena Castroviejo. 2016. Good manners: On the degree effect of good events. In Nadine Bade, Polina Berezovskaya & Anthea Schöller (eds.), Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB), vol. 20, 252–269. Tübingen (8–12 September, 2015).Search in Google Scholar

Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser. 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In Ken Hale & Samuel Jay Kayser (eds.), The view from building, vol. 20, 53–109. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hay, Jennifer, Christopher Kennedy & Beth Levin. 1999. Scale structure underlies telicity in ‘degree achievements’. In Tanya Matthews & Devon Strolovitch (eds.), Semantics and linguistic theory (SALT), vol. 9, 127–144. Ithaca, NY (19–21 February, 1999).10.3765/salt.v9i0.2833Search in Google Scholar

Heim, Irene & Angelika Kratzer. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Higginbotham, James. 1985. On semantics. Linguistic Inquiry 16(4). 547–594.Search in Google Scholar

Jaque, Matías. 2014. La expresión de la estatividad en español. Niveles de representación y grados de dinamicidad [The expression of stativity in Spanish. Levels of representation and degrees of dinamicity]. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Kardos, Éva. 2016. Telicity marking in Hungarian. Glossa. A Journal of General Linguistics 1(1). 1–37. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.52.Search in Google Scholar

Kardos, Éva. 2019. Situation aspectual properties of creation/consumption predicates. Acta Lingüística Academica 66(4). 491–525. https://doi.org/10.1556/2062.2019.66.4.2.Search in Google Scholar

Kardos, Éva & Imola-Ágnes Farkas. 2022. The syntax of inner aspect in Hungarian. Journal of Linguistics 58. 807–845. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022226721000426.Search in Google Scholar

Kearns, Kate. 2000. Semantics. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kearns, Kate. 2007. Telic senses and deadjectival verbs. Lingua 117. 26–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2005.09.002.Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, Christopher. 1997. Projecting the adjective: The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison. Santa Cruz: University of California.Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, Christopher. 2001. Polar opposition and the ontology of ‘degrees’. Linguistics and Philosophy 24. 33–70. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1005668525906.10.1023/A:1005668525906Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, Christopher. 2007. Vagueness and grammar: The semantics of relative and scale gradable adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy 30(1). 1–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-006-9008-0.Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, Christopher. 2012. The composition of incremental change. In Violeta Demonte & Louise McNally (eds.), Telicity, change, and state, 103–137. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, Christopher & Beth Levin. 2008. Measure of change: The adjectival core of degree achievements. In Louise McNally & Christopher Kennedy (eds.), Adjectives and adverbs: Syntax, semantics, and discourse, 156–182. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199211616.003.0007Search in Google Scholar

Kennedy, Christopher & Louise McNally. 2005. Scale structure, degree modification, and the semantics of gradable predicates. Language 81(2). 345–381. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2005.0071.Search in Google Scholar

Krifka, Manfred. 1989. Nominal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event semantics. In Renate Bartsch, Johan van Benthem & Peter van Emde Boas (eds.), Semantics and contextual expressions, 75–115. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.10.1515/9783110877335-005Search in Google Scholar

Krifka, Manfred. 1992. Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In Ivan Sag & Anna Szablocsi (eds.), Lexical matters, 29–53. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.Search in Google Scholar

Krifka, Manfred. 1998. The origins of telicty. In Susan Rothstein (ed.), Events and grammar, 197–235. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-3969-4_9Search in Google Scholar

Landman, Fred. 2000. Events and plurality: The Jerusalem lectures. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-4359-2Search in Google Scholar

Leferman, Bryan. 2017. Evaluative adjectives as a window onto inner-aspect. Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Levin, Beth. 1993. English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the syntax-lexical semantics interface. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 2013. Lexicalized meaning and manner/result complementarity. In Boban Arsenijević, Berit Gehrke & Rafael Marín (eds.), Subatomic semantics of event predicates, 49–70. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-5983-1_3Search in Google Scholar

Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 2019. Lexicalization patterns. In Robert Truswell (ed.), Oxford handbook of event structure, 395–425. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199685318.013.18Search in Google Scholar

Link, Godehard. 1983. The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: A lattice-theoretical approach. In Rainer Bäuerle, Christoph Schwarze & Arnim von Stechow (eds.), Meaning, use, and interpretation of language, 302–323. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110852820.302Search in Google Scholar

MacDonald, Jonathan E. 2017. Spanish aspectual se as an indirect object reflexive: The import of atelicity, bare nouns, and leísta PCC repairs. Probus. International Journal of Romance Linguistics 29(1). 73–118. https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2015-0009.Search in Google Scholar

Maienborn, Claudia. 2005. On the limits of the Davidsonian approach: The case of copula sentences. Theoretical Linguistics 31. 275–316.10.1515/thli.2005.31.3.275Search in Google Scholar

Maienborn, Claudia. 2007. On Davidsonian and Kimian States. In Ileana Comorovski & Klaus Von Heusinger (eds.), Existence: Semantics and syntax, 107–130. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-1-4020-6197-4_4Search in Google Scholar

Marín, Rafael. 2013. La stativité dans tous ses états [Stativity in all its states]. Université Paris 8 mémoire de synthèse.Search in Google Scholar

Marín, Rafael. 2022. Los mejores diagnósticos sobre estados reunidos [The best gathered tests for stativity]. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 11(3). 229–246. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.11.3.6774.Search in Google Scholar

Martínez Vera, Gabriel. 2021. Degree achievements and maximalization: A cross-linguistic perspective. Glossa. A Journal of General Linguistics 6(1). 1–28. https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5883.Search in Google Scholar

Martínez Vera, Gabriel. 2022. Revisiting aspectual se in Spanish: Telicity, statives and maximization. The Linguistic Review 39(1). 159–202. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2021-2084.Search in Google Scholar

Masià, Melania. 2017a. Adverbial adjectives and nominal scalarity. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Masià, Melania. 2017b. Adjectives of completeness as maximizers of event nominalizations. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 6(2). 125–154. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.6.2.4200.Search in Google Scholar

McNally, Louise. 2017. On the scalar properties and telicity of degree achievements. In Elena Castroviejo, Olga Fernández Soriano & Isabel Pérez-Jiménez (eds.), Boundaries, phases, and interfaces. Case studies in honor of Violeta Demonte, 174–192. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.239.09mcnSearch in Google Scholar

McNally, Louise & Gemma Boleda. 2004. Relational adjectives as properties of kinds. In Olivier Bonami & Patricia Cabredo Hofherr (eds.), Empirical issues in formal syntax and semantics, vol. 5, 179–196.Search in Google Scholar

Morzycki, Marcin. 2015. Modification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Parsons, Terry. 1990. Events in the semantics of English: A study in subatomic semantics. Cambridge: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Piñon, Christopher. 1997. Achievements in an event semantics. In Aaron Lawson (ed.), SALT VII, 276–293. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.10.3765/salt.v7i0.2781Search in Google Scholar

Piñon, Christopher. 2000. Happening gradually. In Lisa Conathan, Jeff Good, Darya Kavitskaya, Alyssa Wulf & Alan Yu (eds.), Twenty-sixth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS), 445–456. Berkeley (18–21 February, 2000).10.3765/bls.v26i1.1139Search in Google Scholar

Piñon, Christopher. 2008. Aspectual composition with degrees. In Louise McNally & Christopher Kennedy (eds.), Adjectives and adverbs: Syntax, semantics, and discourse, 183–219. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199211616.003.0008Search in Google Scholar

Rappaport Hovav, Malka. 2014. Building scalar changes. In Artemis Alexiadou, Hagit Borer & Florian Schafer (eds.), The syntax of roots and the roots of syntax, 259–281. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665266.003.0012Search in Google Scholar

Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Beth Levin. 2000. Classifying single argument verbs. In Peter Coopmans, Martin Everaert & Jane Grimshaw (eds.), Lexical specification and insertion, 269–304. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.197.13hovSearch in Google Scholar

Rappaport Hovav, Malka & Beth Levin. 2010. Reflections on manner/result complementarity. In Malka Rappaport Hovav, Edit Doron & Ivy Sichel (eds.), Syntax, lexical semantics and event structure, 21–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544325.003.0002Search in Google Scholar

Rothstein, Susan. 2004. Structuring events: A study in the semantics of lexical aspect. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470759127Search in Google Scholar

Tenny, Carol. 1994. Aspectual roles and the syntax-semantics interface. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-1150-8Search in Google Scholar

Tsujimura, Natsuko. 2001. Degree words and scalar structure in Japanese. Lingua 111. 29–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0024-3841(00)00027-9.Search in Google Scholar

Vendler, Zeno. 1957. Verbs and times. The Philosophical Review 66(2). 143–160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2182371.Search in Google Scholar

Verkuyl, Henk. 1972. On the compositional nature of the aspects. Dordrecht: Reidel.10.1007/978-94-017-2478-4Search in Google Scholar

Zato, Zoltan. 2020. The role of state-kinds in the morphosemantics of deadjectival nominalizations. Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2024-05-07
Published in Print: 2024-06-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 29.1.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/tlr-2024-2009/html
Scroll to top button