Aspectual interpretation and calculation

Laburpena

In this paper I discuss several syntactic properties of inner aspect and what these properties tell us about derivations in narrow syntax (Chomsky 2001, 2006). I argue for the presence of an aspectual projection (AspP) between vP and VP (see also Travis 1991) that syntactically instantiates an object-to-event mapping. Furthermore, we see that AspP and everything dominated by AspP defines a syntactic space in which elements must appear in order to contribute to the aspectual interpretation of the predicate. Interestingly, however, the time at which these elements are calculated is not until later in the derivation, at the phase. This study contributes to our understanding of narrow syntactic derivations by providing alternative support from inner aspectual phenomena for a cyclic interpretation of the verbal predicate at the phase.
   In section 1, I discuss the aspectual relevance of the durative phrase and the time span adverbial. In section 2, I discuss the distinct aspectual interpretations and distributions of bare plurals and mass nouns; we will see that a proper account of them includes an aspectual projection (AspP) between vP and VP. In section 3, I provide evidence for a domain of aspectual interpretation, a space in which elements must appear in order to contribute to the aspectual interpretation of the predicate. In section 4, we see that the time at which the aspectual character of the predicate is determined can only be at the phase.