A constructional approach to stativity in Japanese

This paper deals with the relationship between the formal properties and a specific meaning associated with a class ofJapanese sentences that have the verbal gerund and iru ‘be’ (i.e., -te iru). These sentences arecharacterized by the -te iru verbal morphology on a dynamic verb and a non-volitional subject that does not participatein the event denoted by the verb. The particular stative interpretation induced by these sentences cannot be attributed to themeaning of the individual lexical items. The paper argues instead that the source of the stative meaning is better explained by aconstructional view, that the meaning is attributed to the construction itself.