“THE SEMANTICS OF FINAL PHASE IN ENGLISH AND ITS EXPRESSION IN LITERARY TEXTS”

Abstract:

This paper investigates the semantic notion of the final phase (or terminal boundary) in event semantics and examines how this notion is manifested in literary texts in English. First, it reviews theories of phase structure in semantics (especially with respect to telic vs. atelic predicates and the notion of event culmination). Then it presents an analysis of how authors exploit final-phase meaning to achieve poetic or narrative effects (such as suspense, ellipsis, or delayed completion). Using illustrative examples from canonical English literature, the study shows that the linguistic marking (tense/aspect, adverbials, modals) often encodes a semantic awareness of the boundary of the event. The paper argues that sensitivity to the final-phase semantics enriches textual interpretation, by highlighting how narrative temporality and completion effects operate. The findings have implications for linguistic stylistics and semantic narratology.