Telicity and Terminativity

The terms “telicity” and “terminativity” are used to denote the component of the (lexical) semantic makeup of verbs, verb phrases, sentences, and/or situations relating to their being or not being goal oriented, and so to their (in)completability, their (un)boundedness (Dahl 1981: 83). Although often considered synonymous, the terms have different origins and have been differently defined. The article discusses and compares both terms and briefly presents the debate on their definition and use, especially in the Slavic linguistic context. For Slavic languages, the concept(s) is(are) important especially for the study of verbal aspect, notably aspectual pairs and also Aktionsart. The underlying concept has also been defined as the verbal counterpart of the category of countability in the nominal domain (cf. Mehlig 1996).