earticle

영어

This experimental study compares event completion construals of change-of-state predicates in English by L1 English and L1 Korean speakers. The Incompleteness Effect (henceforth, IE) refers to the phenomenon in which the change-of-state predicates typically entailing event completion describe incomplete events. The semantic account for IE argues that IE arises only for accomplishments, leading to the division between accomplishments and achievements. IE is attested to in Korean but not in English. Given that difference, this paper is concerned with two questions: (1) whether Korean L1 speakers are aware that accomplishments are incompatible with incomplete events in English and (2) whether contextual factors other than the semantic one are relevant to IE. The results indicate that Korean speakers are insensitive to the absence of IE in English, which is best explained by L1 transfer. The results, moreover, showed that contextual factors are relevant to IE but in a selective way. Accomplishments but not achievements were influenced by contextual factors. Lastly, the results revealed there is an intricate interplay between semantic and contextual factors: the former plays a main role while the latter plays a supplementary role.