INTRODUCTION TO PART III

In this part, the interaction between temporal structure and atemporal structure in sentences expressing terminative and durative aspect will be under investigation. In particular, our compositional aspectual theory will be set out to give an explanation for why it is that the unbounded progress expressed by [+add to]-verbs, for example walk, eat and play, can be brought to an end by the [+sqa]-nature of their arguments, and it will try to give a formal account of how complex sentential meanings are formed out of the temporal and atemporal meanings of their constituents.

Some would even like to say that an atemporal grammar like plug in chapter 7.3 might be sufficient if one could agree upon the simple observation that the number of elements of a partition never exceeds the cardinality of the set underlying it. However, this would amount to refusing to take into account the role of temporal structure. It might take Part III to convince those who want to stick to atemporal representations. It is only after going through four separate issues crucially involved in theory formation about temporal structure of sentences that in chapter 13 a formal account can be given because its ingredients and the choices behind them are built up stepwise in the preceding sections. In view of this, the organization of Part III is as follows.