resultatit

Resultatit is the term used to designate a cross-linguistic class of constructions that express the result of an action, commonly called resultatives in English. The core idea is that the main verb describes the action, and a following element specifies the resulting state that results from that action. The semantic relation is often a causal and evaluative relation between the event and its outcome. Syntactically, resultatit can appear as a postverbal adjective or participle, a dedicated resultative verb, or a verb-complement phrase. In English, typical examples include "She hammered the metal flat" or "He painted the door red," where the adjectives "flat" and "red" denote the outcome. In Mandarin Chinese, resultatives are frequently expressed through verb-complement constructions such as "关紧" (guan jin) "close tightly" or "打开好" (dakai hao) "open properly." In Japanese and Korean, resultative expressions can involve auxiliary forms or affixes attached to the main verb. The term also covers more divergent patterns, including fixed lexicalized resultatives in which a verb plus a result element is an idiomatic unit.

Research on resultatit spans semantics, syntax, and typology, debating issues such as whether the resultant state is an argument of the main verb or a separate predicate, how they contribute to event structure, and how they interact with aspect and mood.