On the Semantics and Pragmatics of the Perfective

Abstract

In this paper we propose an analyses of the “perfective paradox” based on a weak interpretation of Klein’s (1994) semantics for the perfective and in generalized conversational implicatures. The perfective paradox occurs when telic events in the perfective aspect don’t entail that their telos is reached, as in sentences like ‘João construiu a casa, mas não terminou’ (John built the house, but didn’t finish it). Before we present our proposal, we analyze Singh’s (1998) proposal and argue that it leads to undesired results and predictions, besides being committed to delicate ontological assumptions. In the last section we present our proposal. It relies on a weak interpretation of Klein’s semantics for the perfective, in the separation of perfective and telicity, and in a specific implicature concerning the reach of the telos of perfective telic events.