Agent control and the acquisition of event culmination in Basque, Dutch, English, Spanish and Mandarin

In this paper we investigate if there is a connection between the acceptance of non-culmination in child language and a seemingly similar phenomenon in certain adult languages. In Mandarin, among other languages, adults accept telic-perfective clauses for non-culminating situations. The types of verbs that allow such readings are referred to as non-culminating accomplishments. Recently, novel developments in semantic theory have established that subject type plays a role in the acceptance of non-culmination in these languages. According to the Agent Control hypothesis (Demirdache & Martin 2015), denying the result as encoded by such accomplishment verbs is easier when the subject’s referent is an intentional Agent than when it is an inanimate Cause. Our study revisits non-target-like acceptance of non-culmination in learners by asking: does non-culmination in child language reflect the same cause as non-culmination in languages like Mandarin?