C. Aspect Telic Atelic

• One result of the investigation of thematic hierarchies: — Causative verbs are special from an argument realization perspective: The relative semantic prominence of their arguments follows from the geometry of event structure: specifically, from event embedding There is empirical evidence that corroborates this proposal: — Causation trumps other posited semantic determinants of argument realization — Specifically, some of these determinants figure in the salience statements sometimes seen as underlying thematic hierarchies. First part of handout will show this via an examination of previously posited determinants. • A second result of the investigation of thematic hierarchies: — The structural view of the thematic hierarchy leaves unexplained why there are also relative prominence relations between arguments of noncausative two-argument verbs. Second part of handout will examine studies of transitivity to begin to reassess and prioritize other posited semantic determinants of argument realization. (This discussion is preliminary and to some extent speculative and incomplete.) 2 Lessons from Hopper & Thompson’s prototype approach to transitivity Hopper & Thompson suggest that transitivity is a prototype notion, identifying the following semantic components (1980:252, (1)), many of which have figured in subsequent work