Agent entailments induce manner properties: evidence from verbs of killing

Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2010) argue that verbs fall into two classes, i.e. result verbs (e.g. kill), which encode a result state, and manner verbs (e.g. poison), which encode a manner of action. Crucially, though, a single verb cannot encode both a manner of action and a result state. Following Beavers & Koontz-Garboden (2012), I argue that such a limitation on possible verb meanings is contrary to fact. I contend that what I call murder verbs (i.e. murder, slay, slaughter, massacre and assassinate) encode both a manner of action and a result state. More specifically, murder verbs encode an intentional action that is carried out with the intention to bring about the result state of death.