This thesis is dedicated to the aspectual distinction between States and Events, and its manifestations in Spanish. The main claim is that such a distinction is equivalent to the Individual-Level/Stage-Level contrast and rests merely in the presence (Events or SLPs) and absence (States or ILPs) of inner aspect. The need for this study arises from the puzzling (and long-standing) observation that "dynamism" -or any other equivalent criterion- is not a relevant primitive of eventivity, since there are predicates that behave as Events despite being non-dynamic. I point out that, once we abandon "dynamism", we reach a State/Event distribution that is equivalent to the Individual-Level/Stage-Level distinction, the understanding of which, in fact, represents another major unknown for the research on inner aspect. This contrast has typically been described as a difference between 'permanent' and 'transitory' qualities, but its aspectual foundations have not yet been defined. Taking this into account, I put forward the hypothesis that the State/Event and the Individual/Stage distinctions are one and the same thing and that the difference between the two classes of predicates rests merely in the absence or the presence of inner aspect. Based on the concept of 'event' adopted in modern (post-Einsteinian/Minkowskian) physics, where reality is taken as a 4D space-time continuum, I propose that the aspectual primitive of eventivity is a "spacetime point", which I label as [Stage]. In order to find out how such a [Stage] primitive (and, thus, the State/Event distinction) is encoded in grammar, I analyse the syntactic phenomena involved in the State/Event distinction, both in the domains of verbal and non-verbal predication, namely the ser/estar distribution, eventive modification and secondary predication. I empirically show that [Stage] is a formal feature, which is encoded in Event predicates (that is, SLPs) as an uninterpretable instance [uS] and is merged in syntax as an interpretable instance [iS] on an Asp head, which is realized as estar in the case of Spanish. Therefore, eventive structures are AspPs that are canonically derived by means of an agreement operation between [uS] on the eventive predicate and [iS] on the Asp head. The study aims to resolve two long-standing enigmas in the domain of inner aspect by providing a more accurate account for the State/Event distinction and the Individual/Stage contrast.
Entre Estados y Eventos. Un estudio del aspecto interno del español
Silvagni ., F. (Author). 26 Jun 2017
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis