ABSTRACT
Telicity is generally accepted as one of the most important concepts in the study of aspect (e.g. Vendler 1967; Comrie 1976; Dowty 1979; Verkuyl 1993; Smith 1997; Xiao and McEnery 2004a, 2004b), which is related to the aspectual feature of whether a situation has an inherent, well-defi ned, natural fi nal endpoint.1 For example, events such as running a mile and reading a book have an inherent fi nal endpoint while those such as running and reading do not. The former are telic situations whereas the latter are atelic. The telicity value of a situation not only affects the interaction between situation aspect and viewpoint aspect (see Xiao and McEnery 2004a), it infl uences the choice of viewpoint aspect in translation as well (cf. McEnery and Xiao 2002, 2005b).
