Unlikely Imperfectives

Abstract

The event-in-progress reading of the English incremental-theme progressive (Elena is drawing a circle) displays vagueness effects, especially when the culmination of the event denoted by the progressive is unlikely. This paper explains these unexpected vagueness effects by adopting a modal theory of the progressive and a gradable theory of modality. It is then possible to explain vagueness effects in the progressive as a result of the same semantic phenomena that generate vagueness effects in gradable adjectives like healthy.