On achievement predicates in Russian and in Italian

Abstract

Achievement predicates are traditionally described as events of short duration. They denote a ‘sudden change of state’ in the participants, with the beginning and the end of the event ideally coinciding. Examples include the Italian morire (to die), arrivare (to arrive), trovare (to find) and the Russian dostič’_PF (‘to reach’) and prijti_PF (‘to arrive’). Despite their ideal non–durativity, these processes unfold over time, albeit quickly. The temporal context of the utterance is crucial: an extended temporal span leads to an interpretation of a repeated event (e.g., Gli ospiti sono arrivati per tre ore – ‘The guests arrived for three hours’), while a ‘point–like’ temporal determination indicates a single event. Similarly, in Russian, achievement verbs form ‘trivial’ aspectual pairs where the imperfective denotes the iterated action and the perfective the single action (prijtiPF–prichodit’_IPF ‘to arrive’). This contribution analyzes the relationship between achievement predicates and the circumstantial and adverbial expressions of time present in the utterance. The points of contact and divergences between the two languages are highlighted.