"telic" vs. "atelic" sentence

Question

John stopped drinking beer.

In one grammar book there is something written about this sentence.

"If the clause can be added to stop in the form of an ing-clause, the sentence is atelic."

I am not able to find out this sentence atelic given the fact I have read about the differences between atelic and telic verbs.

"The telicity is the property of a verb or verb phrase that presents an action or event as being complete in some sense".

The exemplary sentence semantically suggests that John quit drinking beer once and for all. It is a completed decision.

So why atelic sentence? Is it so because "stop" is not action verb?

Answer 1

I think what your grammar book means, but has expressed rather confusingly, is something like this:

If an independent clause C can be cast as gerund complement to the verb STOP, then C is an atelic clause.

In your example, the "sentence" being tested for telicity—clause C—is not the entire sentence John stopped drinking beer but its complement clause [_subjJohn] drinking beer in its canonical form before recasting as a gerund clause:

John drank beer or John was drinking beer.

These two clauses are, indeed, atelic: drink is used here as an activity verb. This use contrasts with drink used as a telic accomplishment verb with the sense "drink completely".

John drank six beers.

My favorite test for telicity is the in/for T contrast, where T is a measured timespan like a week or ten minutes. If the clause accommodates a temporal adjunct of the form in T, then it is telic, but if it only accommodates temporal adjuncts of the form for T then it is atelic.

^∗ John drank beer in an hour.
^okJohn drank beer for an hour.

^okJohn drank six beers in an hour.
^∗ John drank six beers for an hour.