English

Adjective

telic ‎(comparative more telic, superlative most telic)

1. Tending or directed towards a goal or specific end.
   • 1993, Brent D. Slife, Time and Psychological Explanation, page 226,

     Several theorists of the previous chapters are supportive of this more telic view of human nature.

   • 2001, Michael Argyle, The Psychology of Happiness, 2nd Edition, page 129,

     They were asked to rate the 36 activities for how purposeful they were. […] Comparing the 10 most telic and the 10 most paratelic we found that the paratelic leisure activities were thought to involve less skill or challenge; they were also judged to satisfy social needs more, and to be more enjoyable.

   • 2002, John Kerr, Counselling Athletes: Applying Reversal Theory, page 62,

     I have certainly become more telic as I strive to achieve my goals set, but I am not really enjoying any of it.

2. (grammar) That expresses an end or purpose.
   • 1995, Michela Cennamo, Patterns of 'Active' Syntax in Late Latin Pleonastic Reflexives, John Charles Smith, Delia Bentley (editors), Historical Linguistics 1995: Selected Papers from the 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Volume 1: General Issues and Non-Germanic Languages, page 39,

     In this framework, verbs denoting directed change of location, such as Italian andare 'go', instantiate Core Unaccusativity, in that they have a Theme subject and are the most telic, concrete, dynamic.

   • 2000, Niko Besnier, Tuvaluan: A Polynesian Language of the Central Pacific, 2002, page 495,

     Similarly, verb forms that can govern either transitive or middle-case marking (cf. 2.1.3.1.2(c)) are more telic in their transitive manifestations.

   • 2015, Pierre-Don Giancarli, Auxiliary selection with intransitive and reflexive verbs: the limits of gradience and scalarity, followed by a proposal, Rolf Kailuweit, Malte Rosemeyer (editors), Auxiliary Selection Revisited: Gradience and Gradualness, page 82,

     Moreover, let us remember that some verbs can be telic and agentive at the same time: if one looks at the ASH category n°1 (change of location), i.e. the verbs considered the most telic, like FF arriver (arrive), partir (leave), venir (come), revenir (come back) (Sorace 2000:256), old Spanish huir (run away) and escapar (escape) (Legendre 2007), do they not bear an agentive component?

3. (linguistics) That expresses the perfective aspect.

Antonyms

• (directed towards a specific end): paratelic
• (grammar: expressing an end or purpose): atelic

Derived terms

• telic aspect

Related terms

• telicity

See also

• teleo-
• teleology

References

• “telic, a.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2^nd Ed.; 1989]