I thought that using "for" or "in" was a test for telicity. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telicity ) I don't understand your reasoning for classification. Going by my test for telicity, I can say the following:
"run" can be telic.
- I ran a mile in 7 minutes.
- *I ran a mile for 7 minutes.
- I walked to the store in 7 minutes.
- *I walked to the store for 7 minutes.
It can be atelic too: (Note how these sentences mean slightly different things.)
- I ran around the block in 7 minutes. (You went around the block exactly once.)
- I ran around the block for 7 minutes. (You went around the block an unspecified number of times.)
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Their objects often influence how amenable they are to period-descriptors: ?He taught syntax in ten months but I taught the entire book in ten months.
- I taught the entire "Intro to Java" book in 4 months.
- I taught "Intro to Java" for 5 years.
"teach" is atelic in the former, and telic in the latter.
"break" too, can be either:
- I broke my glasses twice in a week.
- I broke windows (as a job, at a window factory, to test them) for 5 years.
I admit that "research" doesn't sound good in a telic sense:
- *I researched 5 different kinds of cancer in 5 years.
- I researched 5 different kinds of cancer for 5 years.
I suppose that one would express the telic meaning with a different verb, "look up":
- I looked up 5 different kinds of cancer in 1 minute.
- *I looked up 5 different kinds of cancer for 1 minute.
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They rarely work when imperative, and then only as wishful thinking: ?Dry!, Break!, die!, *Realize!.
They work just fine. The reason that "dry", "break", and "realize" sound weird is because they need an object. "realize" also sounds weird because it's usually static.
- Dry yourself off!
- Break it!
- Die!
- Realize it! (Telic. Could be rephrased as "Come to realize it!" if you want to respect "realize" being static.)
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They sometimes work with period-descriptors: She understood it in ten minutes; but often not: *She died for ten hours.
Of course they work with "in", but not with "for"; They're telic.
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Period-descriptors beginning with in do not work: *He browsed the web in ten minutes or *It rained in ten minutes.
Because they're atelic.
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there is no obvious endpoint to something such as eat
"eat" can be either:
- I ate spaghetti (every day) for 5 years. (atelic)
- I ate a plate of spaghetti in 5 minutes. (telic)
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States generally cannot be in a progressive aspect, e.g. *I am knowing it, *I am being drunk.
I agree with this. Even then, people do say things like:
- How are you liking the class?
- I'm hating it.
However, it doesn't mean anything different from the non-progressive forms though:
- How do you like the class?
- I hate it.
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They also cannot be described with modal adverbials: *I know it fiercly; *I think it with great care; *I am tall throughly. They generally cannot appear in imperatives either:
What do you mean by "modal adverbials"?
This leaves punctuality/durativity. I think that a better way of understanding it is to draw an analogy from nouns: Count nouns are to punctual verbs as mass nouns are to durative verbs. Durative verbs are hard to break up into separate instances. The best test that I can think up to test for punctuality/durativity is to ask whether "is x-ing (the y)" is broadly equivalent to to "starting to x (the y)". If it's not, then ask whether it's iterative. If it's not, than it's durative.
Examples:
Group 1) die, (come to) realize, (come to) understand, break
Group 2) shoot, hit, knock, bite
Group 3) run, eat, teach, research, read, yell
I'd still classify the second group as punctual though. You can imagine watching a video that shows a gun shooting in slow motion, and say "It's shooting!" as it begins. Maybe it's something to do with the nature of the verbs in the first group that they change the state of the patient so drastically that it can't happen twice. (You can die only once, usually; A vase can break only once, etc.)
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So, to sum up my view of it:
Verbs
- Static : The progressive does *not* change meaning. (Aka: Generally cannot be in the progressive.)
- Dynamic : The progressive does change meaning.
-- Telic : Can take a temporal prep phrase that starts with "in".
-- Atelic : Can take a temporal prep phrase that starts with "for".
-- Punctual : Doing it repeatedly (if possible) is perceived as multiple actions. (iterative)
-- Durative : Doing it repeatedly is perceived as a single action.
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By the way, "knock" is a weird verb that has a strange restricted usage to:
1) I knocked on his door 5 times.
2) I knocked the cup off the table.
3) Knock it off! (What you say to somebody that's teasing you. However, it sounds wrong/odd to say ?"The bully finally knocked (it) off.". "stop" is properly orthogonal: "Stop it!" "The bully finally stopped.")
Saying "knock" without a preposition sounds wrong:
*I knocked his door.
*I knocked the cup.