Event Structure without Naïve Physics

Abstract

What is the real nature of the aspectual division between perfective and imperfective as revealed by the well-known in/for-test? The answer is founded on the idea that this division between completion and incompletion mirrors our cognitive capacity to shift between discreteness and continuity as expressed in the number systems N and R. To get at the real contribution of a verb to aspectual information, the first step is to determine the basic atemporal building block making a tenseless verb stative or non-stative. For this, verbhood is to be understood aspectually in a very strict way abstracting from the contribution of arguments. It follows that one has to get ‘below’ event structure in order to see why the in/for-test works as it turns out to do (or in some cases not).