Delahunty and Garvey
chess, but atelic on other occasions, e.g., The children are playing. For
each of the following sentences decide whether it represents a telic or
an atelic situation and justify your decision.
a. She wrote a poem.
b. She writes poetry.
c. The water froze.
d. The water is freezing.
e. The plane arrived.
- The count/non-count distinction in nouns is similar to the telic/
atelic distinction in verbs. Count nouns represent classes of bounded
entities; telic verbs represent classes of bounded situations. Non-count
nouns represent unbounded classes of things or substances; atelic verbs
represent unbounded classes of events. Thus, a piece of a chair is not
a chair, but a piece of paper is still paper. Similarly, writing a piece of
a poem is not the same as writing a poem, though a piece of writing is
still writing. What conclusions might you derive about human cognition
from this similarity between nouns and verbs? - Identify all the main verbs in Exercise 6 just above. Then classify
each main verb as state or activity. Which kind of verb predominates in
that piece of text? Can you divide the text into two sections, each with
a different rhetorical purpose? Do the verbs in the two sections differ?
Why do you think that might be? - We can divide the category of activity verbs into those that repre-
sent events that take just a point of time (punctual verbs), e.g., tap,
and those that take a period of time (durative verbs), e.g., read. In the
progressive, punctual verbs strongly suggest repeated action. Oscar is
tapping his fingers impatiently describes multiple finger taps. But Os-
car is reading strongly suggests a single, continuous episode of reading.
Put each of the following verbs into the progressive, then determine
whether the resulting expression denotes multiple, repeated events,
or a single, continuous activity: punch, beat, nap, flap, wink, close,
run, work. - Change of state (process) verbs are yet another subclass of activity
verb. As their name suggests, they describe change from one state to
another, e.g., melt. If something melts then it changes from a solid to
a liquid state. But notice how such verbs are interpreted when they