This paper argues that experiential
guo in Mandarin predicates on situations whose semantics as a whole is terminable. Situations in the world can be categorized
into two groups in terms of the number of components in the semantics: The first group denotes bipartite semantics, i.e. a
bounded event plus a (resultative) state or an activity plus a (resultative) state, and the second group unary semantics,
which can be either an activity or a state. Terminability means completion for a bounded situation and termination for an
unbound situation. To be compatible with experiential
guo, both parts in bipartite semantics and the only part in unary semantics must be terminable. Because terminability is the
required condition for the compatibility with experiential
guo, I argue that, among the properties
guo is usually claimed to have in the literature, only discontinuity is an inherent property of
guo. As for properties such as a class meaning and the condition of recurrence, I first show that an eventuality
guo presents does not necessarily have a class meaning. Then I argue that these two properties are just one facet of terminability
and that they both follow naturally from terminability. Furthermore, I establish that temporal independence and indefinite
past are defeasible inferences from terminability. I also argue that the difference between perfective
le and experiential
guo lies in that perfective
le accesses only the left side of the semantics of a situation
le presents, while experiential
guo accesses the whole semantics of a situation
guo presents. This difference explains why perfective
le and experiential
guo are interchangeable in some contexts, but not in the others. This paper is interesting in that the proposed semantics of
guo can explain all the examples with
guo, including those traditionally considered as counterexamples to the condition of recurrence and those concerning a class
meaning.
Keywords Experiential guo
- Perfective aspect - Aspects - Semantics