34 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.
3.2 Verb classes and logical structures
Underlying any system of lexical representation for verbs and other pre
dicatore, implicitly or explicitly, is a theory of verb classes. RRG starts from
the Vendler (1967) classification of verbs into states, achievements,
accomplishments and activities, and utilizes a modified version of the rep
resentational scheme proposed in Dowty (1979) to capture these distinc
tions. Examples of English verbs from each of the Aktionsart classes are
given in (19).
(19) STATES ACHIEVEMENTS ACCOMPLISHMENTS ACTIVITIES
be shattered shatter (intr) shatter (tr) swim
have receive give walk
know learn teach talk
believe realize convince think(about)
be dead die kill watch
be cool coo(intr) cool(ir) sparkle
Vendler proposed this taxonomy based solely on the analysis of English
verbs, and yet it has proved to be of great cross-linguistic validity. Investi
gations of the following languages have shown that these contrasts are cen
tral to the organization of their verbal systems: Lakhota (FVV), Tagalog
(FVV), Sama (Philippines; Walton 1986), Yatye (Kwa, Nigeria; FVV,
Stahlke 1970), Tepehua (Totonacan, Mexico; Watters 1988), Italian (Cen-
tineo 1986), Georgian (Holisky 1979,1981a,b), Icelandic (Van Valin
1990a), Mparntwe Arrernte (Australia; Wilkins 1989), and Bribri (Chib-
chan, Costa Rica; Tomcsányi 1988). It would not be unreasonable to
hypothesize that these distinctions are the universal basis of the organiza
tion of verbal systems in human language.
Dowty proposes a number of syntactic and semantic tests for determin
ing the class of a verb (cf. 1979:60). A list of possible tests for verb class are
given in Table 2.^18