Each time a speaker wants to verbalize an event, he or she has to make decisions, to use which of the competing linguistic forms a particular language offers. In order to be able to choose a simple lexical unit or a more complex construction like a verbo-nominal construction the speaker has to take into account a wide variety of semantic characteristics, differentiating single lexical entities as fragen from constructions like eine Frage stellen, commonly called support verb constructions or composite predicates: infomation-structural flexibility, causativation, intensivation, quantifiability etc. However, it is a widespread opinion that the most important function of these verbo-nominal constructions is to alter the aspectual value of the respective simple verbal lexicalization (viz., e.g., fragen).
If we call this kind of modification `aspect shift', then we have to differentiate two types. There is on the one hand the phenomenon that, applying common `tests', some predicates behave as if they belong to more than one aspectual class, e.g., einen Kuchen backen/to bake a cake. Sometimes this is explained by lexical ambiguity (cf. Dowty 1979), that means by saying that bake is lexically ambiguous between a process and an event reading.
On the other hand we have coercion. Suppose we have a syntactic constituent d of the form [abc], and R as a semantic rule enabling the interpretation of constituents of type a;. If there is a problem to associate the meanings of b and c, the addressee has the option, to reanalyse the meaning of b or c, in order to apply R and ascribe a meaning to d.
The problem is now, why some predicates allow these kinds of aspectual shifts and others not
and when and why under some circumstances these reinterpretations are possible
In this paper, I will look at verbs of communication and the respective verbo-nominal constructions, and show how this interpretational variability can be dealt with, relying on the idea that the truth value of a sentence is relative to `precision states' (cf. Lewis 1970; Kamp 1975). Doing this I will use Zucchi's concepts of relative cummulativity and graduable culminativity (Zuccchi 1998), and I will show that the characteristics of verbo-nominal construction such as determinability, quantifiability etc. heavily restrict relative cummulativity and gradual culminativity, thereby minimizing the options for reinterpretation.
Finally, I will give examples for the fact that there are significant differences between particular languages (this also holds for the membership in a particular aspectual class), and I will discuss the question if and in what respect that may reflect differences in the respective conceptualizing processes.
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