| The main goal of this dissertation is to explore and provide an account of the syntactic nature of inner aspect. I conclude that the syntactic nature of inner aspect consists primarily of a space within the verb phrase within which elements must be located in order to contribute to the aspectual interpretation of the predicate; this is the domain of aspectual interpretation . Technically the domain of aspectual interpretation is minimally defined as an aspectual projection (AspP) between vP and VP (see also Travis 1991). When a certain property of an NP Agrees with Asp°, the domain is extended to everything dominated by AspP; this is the syntactic instantiation of an object-to-event mapping. The result of the presence of this domain is that elements above AspP (e.g. CAUSE introducing external arguments (Hay, Kennedy & Levin 1999), external arguments themselves (Tenny 1987), and locative PPs) cannot contribute to the aspectual interpretation of the predicate.;I also provide a syntactic typology of aspectual predicate types . This consists of the minimal syntactic machinery necessary to account for an array of properties systematically associated with statives, activities, accomplishments, and achievements. Relevant to the determination of this typology are AspP, as well as syntactically and semantically active properties of predicates (event features). The presence or absence of AspP and event features in conjunction with the syntactic relation between the event features themselves derives the typology.;Furthermore, I claim that a locus of parametric variation in inner aspect is the AspP projection itself. I argue that English is representative of languages that possess AspP and Russian is representative of languages that lack AspP. This claim is motivated by the systematically distinct aspectual distributions and interpretations of mass nouns and bare plurals.;Finally, a natural consequence of this proposal is that case and aspect are independent syntactic relations. I conclude that aspect is a relation between an NP and Asp° and assume that accusative case is a relation between a DP and v° (Chomsky 2001). I discuss this consequence for Finnish, often put forth as a language that exemplifies a direct relation between case and aspect. |
