Processing non-culminating accomplishments in European Portuguese

Abstract

This paper investigates the processing and interpretation of non-culmination sentences and subjects' agentivity in European Portuguese. A five-point Likert scale is employed to test the native speaker's judgment regarding the acceptability of five types of non-culminating accomplishment sentences put forward in Guéron and Vogeleer (2021), providing evidence that speakers accept non-culminating accomplishments to a certain extent, albeit acceptance differs depending on the circumstance. Furthermore, while the subject's agentivity does have some bearing on the acceptability rating, it does not appear to be a requirement for non-culminating accomplishments in European Portuguese. A self-paced reading experiment also shows processing differences amongst five types of non-culminating accomplishments and that subject agentivity does not affect processing time.