Towards a unified analysis of three cross-linguistically correlated telic constructions in Romanian

Abstract

Recent approaches to the theory of aspectuality assume that there is a conceptual similarity and cross-linguistic correlation between the (un)availability of goal-of-motion, strong resultative and aspectual cognate object constructions. This paper, examining Romanian data, brings further evidence in favour of the parallel between these three telic constructions and supports the tight correlation between them. It shows that although, at first glance, this verb-framed language shows patterns that seem to argue against the above correlation and especially against the unavailability of these structures, they prove to be only apparent counterexamples to it. Moreover, without questioning the typological classification of Romanian as a verb- framed language or the validity of the cross-linguistic correlation between these constructions, it reveals that a more detailed analysis of aspectual cognate object constructions in Romanian requires a different and more careful approach, which also takes into consideration the source of the diachronic data.