telicity.

The property of an event description that includes an inherent endpoint or goal.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• telicity of a predicate
• telicity distinction
• test for telicity

On the page

Adding a mile changed the telicity of the predicate from unbounded running to a delimited event.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal / analytical. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Oxford linguistic discussion verifies endpoint-directed predicates and the role of their objects; entry distinguishes predicate telicity from tense and actual completion. Writing functions: language analysis, conceptual distinction.