Lexical aspect in Spanish: contrasts, syntactic structures and semantic interpretations

Abstract

The different distinctions related to lexical aspect –state, activity, accomplishments and achievements– play an important role in the grammar of Spanish, but many of the details about how these distinctions can be implemented are unclear: which features distinguish between the classes, how the classes relate to each other, what is the nature of telicity or dynamicity and how one can account for the alternations that a verb is subject to involving its aspect are some of the most important problems from this perspective. The goal of this article is to provide a sufficient empirical base to address these questions and present the current alternatives to answer them.

Keywords

• lexical aspect
• Aktionsart
• states
• activities
• accomplishments
• achievements