Zaha Hadid and the BMW Central Building: Accomplishment vs. Activity

Zaha Hadid was designing the BMW Central Building.

The eventuality described in the VP ‘design the BMW Central Building” is [-static, +durative, +telic], thus an accomplishment. As shown in this example, it is compatible with the progressive, which emphasizes the progress of a [+durative] eventuality. Three diagnostics can be used to show that this event is an accomplishment, not an activity:

1. It is compatible with in-PPs ('Zaha Hadid designed the BMW Central Building in three months.'), but not with for-PPs ('Zaha Hadid designed the BMW Central Building in three months').
2. It does not have the sub-interval property: A subinterval of the event described in ‘Zaha Hadid designed the BMW Central Building’ cannot be described as ‘Zaha Hadid designed the BMW Central Building’.
3. The imperfective does not entail the perfective: ‘Zaha Hadid was designing the BMW Central Building’ does NOT entail ‘Zaha Hadid designed the BMW Central Building’.

The policeman hit the screen a few times with the stylus.

The eventuality described in the VP ‘hit the screen’ is [-static, -durative, -telic], thus a semelfactive. Three diagnostics can be used to show that this event is a semelfactive:

1. It is incompatible with in-PPs: #The policeman hit the screen in three minutes.
2. It is compatible with for-PPs with an interpretation of duration of a series of iterated events: The policeman hit the screen for ten seconds.
3. It is compatible with the progressive, which emphasizes the progress of several instances of the event.

My boyfriend is in London.

The eventuality described in the VP ‘be in London’ is [+static, +durative, -telic], thus a state. Two diagnostics can be used to show that this eventuality is a state:

1. It is incompatible with the progressive: ‘#My boyfriend is being in London.’
2. The present tense, as in this example, has a present time reading.

An additional property of this state is that it expresses a temporary property, i.e. it is a stage-level predicate which cannot co-occur with generic statements about classes of individuals (#Students are in London) and can co-occur with presentational there (There are many students in London).