On the aspectual interpretation of Spanish gerunds

PARIS, LUIS

Nueva Revista de Lenguas Extranjeras

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNCuyo

Lugar: Mendoza; Año: 2006 vol. 9 p. 155 - 174

0328-9273

The aspectual interpretation of gerund clauses in the Spanish Gerund Construction (SGC)  is variable and entails a shift in the type of the event description associated to the base predicate. Neither of those properties can be described by the traditional type shifting operators progressive and imperfective.  I propose, then, a specific operator GER to capture the contribution of the gerund morphology to the aspectual interpretation of gerund clauses. GER is essentially vague regarding telicity; namely, it allows for a telic or an atelic interpretation. Further, each subclass of SGC is associated to a particualar ‘rethorical rule’ that determines the default setting of the telic-atelic parameter allowed by GER.