Telicity
Okay kiddo, let me try to explain telicity to you. Telicity is like playing with Legos. You get a bunch of pieces and you can build something with them. Now, when you're done building, you can look at your creation and say that it's complete - you've finished building it. This is what we call a telic activity.
But, let's say you get a box of Lego pieces and you just start building and building and building without any specific goal in mind. You could spend hours building different things, taking pieces apart, and trying something new. This is what we call an atelic activity.
In language, we can use telicity to describe actions that have a clear endpoint or goal. For example, "I ate a sandwich" is telic because once you finish eating the sandwich, you're done. On the other hand, "I was eating a sandwich" is atelic because there's no clear endpoint - you could keep munching away for hours.
I hope this helps you understand telicity a bit better!
But, let's say you get a box of Lego pieces and you just start building and building and building without any specific goal in mind. You could spend hours building different things, taking pieces apart, and trying something new. This is what we call an atelic activity.
In language, we can use telicity to describe actions that have a clear endpoint or goal. For example, "I ate a sandwich" is telic because once you finish eating the sandwich, you're done. On the other hand, "I was eating a sandwich" is atelic because there's no clear endpoint - you could keep munching away for hours.
I hope this helps you understand telicity a bit better!