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<p>Dear PLing members, <br /><br />I would like to invite you to the upcoming online talk by Maarten Bogaards (Leiden University) titled "Where does Viewpoint Aspect Merge? Evidence from Aspectual Coercion" (see below for the abstract), taking place on Monday, 17 June 2024, at 15:00h, in the scope of the FWF project Implicational hierarchies in clausal complementation (PI Susi Wurmbrand).<br /><br />To attend the talk, please use the following link: <a href="https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63604210351?pwd=uIe62srG3NaF9Ujzd6jLh3WYFOpdPV.1">https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63604210351?pwd=uIe62srG3NaF9Ujzd6jLh3WYFOpdPV.1</a></p>
<p>I/we look forward to seeing many of you there!</p>
<p>Best, <br />Iva Kovač<br /><br /><br />***</p>
<p><strong>Where does Viewpoint Aspect Merge? Evidence from Aspectual Coercion<br /></strong>Maarten Bogaards (Leiden University)<br /><br /><br />One major question in Comparative Syntax is how functional projections articulating TAME distinctions are distributed over the clausal spine (i.a., Cinque 1999; Laca 2004; Ramchand & Svenonius 2014; Yan & Yuan 2024). For instance, Fukuda (2012) identified two positions for aspectual verbs in Japanese—one above and one below little <em>v</em>/Voice. And for English, Harwood (2015) and Ramchand (2018) have argued that the Progressive and Perfect merge, respectively, within and outside of the <em>v</em>/Voice domain.<br /><br />Focusing on viewpoint aspect (progressive, continuative, prospective, etc.), this talk discusses a previously unnoticed phenomenon involving aspectual coercion, which I’ll argue sheds some light on the ‘big question’ above. Aspectual coercion—a.k.a. aspect shift—occurs when there’s a mismatch between a viewpoint aspect construction and its input (de Swart 1998). Take continuative aspect (e.g., English [<em>keep </em>V-<em>ing</em>] in (1a), [V <em>on</em>] in (1b)), which has a durative selectional restriction. Embedding a non-durative (i.e., Achievement) verb such as <em>arrive</em> results in a mismatch which can normally be repaired via iterative coercion: (2a) necessarily denotes repeated ‘arriving’ events. However, despite ostensibly having the same meaning, continuative <em>on </em>in (2b) blocks aspectual coercion. For ease of reference, I term the type of contrast illustrated by (2a-b) <strong>Aspectual Coercion Blocking</strong> (ACB) effects.<br /><br />(1)<br />a. The tourists <em>kept talking</em>.<br />b. The tourists <em>talked on</em>.<br /><br />(2)<br />a. The tourists <em>kept arriving</em>.<br />b. *The tourists <em>arrived on</em>.<br /><br />ACB effects are not restricted to English, nor to continuative aspect; I observe that they’re also found in Mandarin Chinese and in Dutch, and across various types of viewpoint aspect—including progressive, ingressive and prospective aspect. The proposal outlined in this talk holds that ACB effects fall out naturally from a particular style of verbal decomposition (i.a., Travis 2010; Lu et al. 2019; Sybesma 2021). Drawing on evidence from distribution, licensing and intervention effects, I argue that ACB effects are a reflex of merge <em>within</em> the articulation of big VP, when the syntactic correlates of inner aspect are still being built up. A general consequence of this proposal is that viewpoint aspect markers are distributed over not two but three distinct clausal zones: not just (i) above <em>v/</em>Voice and (ii) below <em>v</em>/Voice (as commonly assumed), but also (iii) within the direct extension of VP, responsible for the computation of inner aspect.</p>
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