RECONSIDERING STATIVE PREDICATIONS, THEIR
BEHAVIOUR AND CHARACTERISTICS
Cadernos de Linguística Nº 11, Porto, C.L.U.P., 2005.
ABSTRACT
Concerning their
aspectual profile, stative predications do not form an unvarying
category. Conversely, they constitute a complex and heterogeneous
aspectual class. In fact, the situations
that traditionally are labelled “states” exhibit a great variability in their linguistic behaviour patterns, which reveal significant
dissimilarities at their internal temporal structure. This is particularly noteworthy in languages
like Portuguese, in which the
distinction between ser
(‘be’) and estar (‘be’) plays an
important role in the aspectual interpretation of sentences.
The main goal of this
paper will be, therefore, to provide a reclassification for the different kinds
of stative predications, trying to establish linguistic criteria that make
possible to justify the validity of
such distinctions.
In this way, we will
depart from a discussion of the
well-known criteria suggested by Dowty
(1979) in order to distinguish states from events, showing
that some of them are clearly inadequate for this purpose.
In order to solve this problem, we
will follow the hypothesis that there are several subclasses of statives, characterized by specific aspectual properties, which explain the above-mentioned
differences. We will make use, in particular, of the distinctions between individual-level and stage-level predicates (cf. Carlson (1977), Chierchia (1995), Kratzer (1995) and between phase
and non-phase states (cf. Cunha (1998), (2004)).
Finally, we will suggest some criteria that can
really describe the opposition that arises between
states and events, justifying the maintenance of this distinction
in the framework
of the aspectual classes of predicates description.