418 MARY L. NUNES
"result state" is used in Table 2 in the sense defined by Lys and Mommer
(1986). They define a RS verb as one composed of the following internal
temporal phases: a durative nucleus, a culmination point, and a result state.
These phases are defined as follows.
A durative nucleus (DN) is a durative temporal segment during which the
characteristic activity associated with the situation is "in progress"...A cul
mination point (CP) is a natural, final endpoint beyond which the action
cannot continue...A result-state (RS) is a durative non-dynamic temporal
segment which comes about as a result of the actualization of the culmina
tion point. (1986: 218-19)
It should be pointed out that for many speakers, U's vN is permitted
with all three types of nominals represented in Table 2. For others, treating
the non-Α arguments of some of the Type CACT as an ACM-sense PAT,
instead of simply as an ACM-sense delimiter of some sort, is only margin
ally acceptable. In order to reflect this variation among speakers, the "+"
in the U's vN column of Table 2 is placed in parentheses. Although the fol
lowing discussion will be carried out from the perspective of speakers who
are able to get the PAT performance-object interpretation, it should be
kept in mind that for some speakers, some of these vNs fall into the cate
gory of ACTs like criticism and discussion, whose accumulated action
interpretations neither include the notion of something new coming into
being nor take the non-Α argument to be anything other than an unaffected
delimiter.
For speakers who do get the performance-object interpretation with
the Type CACT nominals, the non-A argument in (65d) may be treated as if
it were as much a PAT U of an ACM result-state vN as are the Us in
(65a,b,c).
(65) a. The museum'sU destruction saddened art lovers around the
world. (Type B)
b. The light bulb'SU invention altered life styles forever.
(Type CACM)
The poem'sU translation was long overdue. (Type CACM)
d. The murder's"U" investigation revealed nothing about the
butler's motive. (Type CACT)
With Type nominals like destruction (cf. 65a), the PAT comes into a new
state of being. With Type CACMs like invention and translation, either the
PAT (cf. 65b) or an instantiation of the PAT (cf. 65c) comes into being as