THE FOR-PHRASE
Keywords:
for-phrase, event interval, aspect, proportional matching, measure phraseAbstract
This paper proposes a novel account of the semantics of the for‑phrase and its counterparts in at least some other languages. After a presentation and discussion of two standard accounts of its semantics, and of the event-semantics
and scope properties of the for-phrase, I introduce some novel data that point in the direction of a more complex semantics for this expression. I argue that the for‑phrase introduces a proportional matching between the measure that it introduces and some relevant quantity involved in the description of the modified eventuality. This implies that it is generated at the level of quantification over eventualities. I show that the for-phrase can modify telic eventualities, as well as states and processes, whether independent, or as subevents in the telic template, and even the reference time – as long as they have not yet been quantified, showing how this is accounted for by the analysis proposed.
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