Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

3.3 Aspectual coercion 73in the extension ofP. We say that the progressive operator shortens the typicalduration associated with the predicate. Conversely, in the extension ofITER(P)we find eventualities that are longer than the longest in the extension of P, butno eventualities that are shorter than the shortest. The iterative operatorlengthens the typical duration associated with the predicate.Both operators are compatible with bounded predicates and return unboundedpredicates. So from an aspectual point of view both qualify as interveningoperators. However, both (95a) and (95b) have only one interpretation.For (95a) only an iterative reinterpretation is available, for (95b) only a progressive.This is accounted for in the following way. As we have seen, bothoperators affect the duration associated with the predicate that undergoes coercion.The typical duration associated with the predicate Max play the ‘FlyingDutchman’ on his stereo is some hours (this is how long Wagner operas take).The typical duration associated with the predicate that results if the iterativeoperator is applied to the predicate Max play the ‘Flying Dutchman’ onhis stereo is longer. The progressive operator has the opposite effect. TheDuration Principle states that the information on the duration of an eventualityprovided by various sources must be compatible. For (95), this meansthat typical duration associated with the predicate must be compatible withthe information provided by the for-adverbials. For (95a), the information iscompatible on an iterative reinterpretation, for (95b), on a progressive interpretation.In this way the Duration Principle constrains the range of feasiblereinterpretations.As I mentioned, the Duration Principle also triggers its own reinterpretations.Egg (2005:190) illustrates this with (98):(98) #Max played soccer on the beach for three months.(98) has an iterative interpretation. This reinterpretation is not motivated byan aspectual mismatch: for-adverbials select for unbounded predicates andMax play soccer on the beach is of this kind. Egg claims that the reinterpretationis instead triggered by an attempt to avoid a violation of the DurationPrinciple. The extension of the predicate Max play soccer on the beach doesnot contain an eventuality with a duration of three months. This clash betweenthe information on duration provided by the predicate and the for-adverbialcan be solved by the intervention of an iterative operator, since, as in theprevious example, this operator lengthens the typical duration associated withthe predicate. Thus the Duration Principle is an additional licensing conditionfor reinterpretation.In this section I have discussed the role of the Duration Principle in reinterpretationphenomena. In sections 4.5 and 4.7 we will see that this principleplays a role in the Ancient Greek aspectual system as well. I will claim that itis responsible for the choice between the ingressive and complexive interpreta-