Achievement verbs describe a punctual action that brings about a change of state. Examples are: ‘dào’ (arrive), ‘yíng’ (win), ‘sǐ’ (die), ‘lái’ (come), ‘duàn’ (break) and ‘suì’ (break to pieces), etc.
1a. 杯子打碎了。
Bēizi dǎ suì le.
(The glass was broken.)
1b. 老师领来了一个新同学。
Lǎoshī lǐng lái le yī gè xīn tóngxué .
(The teacher brought a new student here.)
In these two RVCs ‘dǎ suì’ (break) and ‘lǐng lái’ (lead-come = bring), the resultative complements ‘suì’ (broken) and ‘lái’ (come) are Achievements, denoting a change of state.
[1] Loar, J. K. (2011). Chinese syntactic grammar: functional and conceptual principles. New York: Peter Lang.
