Some notes on the quantification of Degree Achievements in European Portuguese

Abstract

The present investigation addresses the quantification of Degree Achievements (DAs) in European Portuguese (EP). DAs have been extensively investigated, as they are mostly deadjectival verbs, which therefore inherit their structure from gradable adjectives. These verbs have the special feature of allowing ambiguous readings regarding the telicity of the event projected by the verb: either telic or atelic. Since they derive from gradable adjectives, DAs have typically been considered, in the literature, gradable predicates, which allows us to question whether or not this type of verb can be quantified. Thus, the present work intends to verify the compatibility of this type of verbs with the EP quantifiers muito (‘very’) and pouco (‘little’). Taking into consideration the research by Quadros Gomes (2011a, 2011b) on the modification of gradable adjectives by muito (‘much/very’) and bem (‘well’) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), we aim to understand how these quantifiers will act on DAs particularly in what concerns their basic scalar structure (open-scale and closed-scale DAs) and the final readings available for each case: telic, atelic or both. The results show that the type of scale does not influence the final reading, since none of the analysed DAs induces a telic reading (i.e., the attaining of a maximum degree, contextually defined). In fact, in all the cases, even with closed-scale DAs, the final interpretation is atelic, denoting a process reading. Moreover, in EP, a second reading, concerning the degree of frequency of the eventualities denoted by these verbs (which denotes repetition of the events), seems to be available for most of the analysed examples.