Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

secondary predicates like (3a) and (3b) above (repeated below) indicate that the content
of the secondary predicate is true throughout the period of time within which the main
predicate takes place.
(11) John i drove the car drunk i.
(12) Mary drank the coffee i hot i.
In (12), for example, the depictive secondary predicate “hot” is true throughout the entire
period of time during which Mary was drinking the coffee, not only at the end of the
event as was the case with the resultative secondary predicates. Likewise, in example
(11), John was presumably drunk throughout the period in which he drove the car,
although the implication is somewhat less clear than in (12) due to the fact that “to drive
a car” is atelic: secondary predicates that modify the subject of transitive atelic predicates
are fine, but secondary predicates that modify the subject of a transitive, telic predicate
are somewhat problematic, presumably because the occurrence of a direct object
interferes with a secondary predicate that is meant to modify the subject of the clause.
(13) Mary i drank the coffee % drunk i/ % sober.
In (13), “drunk” and “sober” seem somewhat odd, but not entirely ungrammatical; they
do, however, seem to imply that the drinking of coffee might have resulted in “sober”
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