The semantics of degree verbs and the telicity issue

This paper addresses the formal representation of Degree Verbs (DVs), also known as degree achievements, using data from English and Italian. After assessing the similarities and differences of DVs vis-à-vis the accomplishment predicates within the set of “incremental theme verbs”, a double scale system is proposed to account for the telicity calculus. It is shown that DVs should be regarded as telic even though in most cases they do not imply culmination, but rather the mere attainment of a “contingent” telos. This formalism can be exploited to account for related phenomena, such as the so- called “conative oblique constructions” and “non-culminating” telic predicates.