Going is not Becoming Some Comments on the Resultative in English (and Icelandic).

Abstract

This paper concerns resultatives such as The blacksmith hammered the metal flat and argues that change-of-state and motion constructions with result phrases should not be collapsed under a uniform analysis, as this obscures important differences between the two constructions. In particular, it argues that there is a direct object restriction on change-of-state resultatives that does not apply in motion constructions. The article reviews a number of important differences with respect to transitivity, case-marking and interpretation between the two constructions and addresses a number of well-known counterexamples to the direct object restriction, which turn out to be almost uniformally examples of motion constructions.

Keywords: resultative, depictive, change-of-state, motion, comitative