Stative and eventive alternations with some spatial verbs

Abstract

This chapter addresses the alternation between eventive and stative readings of predications projected by some verbs of motion in European Portuguese. We propose that these predications correspond to non-phase individual level predicates in their stative reading and this is justified with a set of well-established linguistic tests presented in the literature. We also analyse some linguistic factors underlying the stative/eventive alternation exhibited by these verbs, namely the tense used in the predication and some lexical properties of the Figure argument. We further assume that the relationship between the Figure argument and the path projected by this kind of verbs plays an essential role in their final interpretation. We argue that both stative and eventive readings arise as a result of aspectual composition and that these spatial verbs are lexically underspecified regarding the state/event distinction.