Atelicity and Measure Phrases: Licensing Measure Phrase Modification Across AP, PP, and VP

At least with respect to the PP cases, this is a bit less familiar. The goal of this paper, apart from merely linking these two questions, is to give them the same (partial) answer: that Aktionsart restrictions imposed by a particular class of temporal adverbials are a special case of a more general restriction on measure-phrase modification, the Modification Condition of Winter (2001, 2005) and Zwarts and Winter (2000). I will also pursue an understanding of the crosscategorial syntax and semantics of measure phrase modification that blunts a principal argument for enrichments to the ontology they advocate. Section two discusses the Modification Condition; section three argues that a class of temporal adverbials are simply verbal measure phrases; and section four relates these adverbials and measure phrase licensing and considers some broader consequences.