The Processing Consequences of the Imperfective Paradox

In this paper we present a semantic analysis of the imperfective paradox based on the Event Calculus (van Lambalgen & Hamm 2004), a planning formalism characterizing a class of models which can be computed by connectionist networks. We report the results of a questionnaire that support the semantic theory and suggest that different aspectual classes of VPs in the progressive give rise to different entailment patterns. Further, a processing model is outlined, combining the semantic analysis with the psycholinguistic principle of immediacy in the framework of recurrent networks. The model is used to derive predictions concerning the electrophysiological correlates of the computations described by the Event Calculus.