The English Progressive and the Finnish Partitive as Predicate Modifiers: A New Solution to the Imperfective Paradox

نویسنده

  • Mika Oksanen
چکیده

In this article I want to present a new approach to the semantics of the English progressive and show how the same ideas can also be applied to the semantics of the Finnish partitive case. In nearly all formal semantical theories of the progressive I am familiar with the progressive is formalized with the aid of a sentential operator. I suggest that if we formalize the progressive as a predicate modifier instead, we can solve many of the problems that have plagued previous theories of the progressive. I will start from Dowty’s classic theory of the progressive, show what defects have been found in it and show how it can be corrected.

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تاریخ انتشار 2003