Derivation of Czech verbs and the category of aspect

The paper continues and updates former analyses of the author, concentrated mainly on the situation in Czech, but also analysing various situations in other Slavic languages. The conclusion supports Bernard Comrie’s interpretation of the perfective (dokonavý) aspect as ‘marked’, perhaps better defined as a ‘verbal definite article’, whereas the stronger and stronger Czech iterative as also ‘marked’, but as a ‘verbal indefinite article’. A verbal prefix has two functions: grammatical (turns an imperfective into a perfective verb), and lexical (changes the meaning of the verb, in this case the change may be none or null).

2010

Slavic languages are characterized by systematic pairings of verbs showing aspectual oppositions. Usually the perfective verbs are derived from imperfectives by prefixation, but the other processes, such as the derivation of secondary imperfectives and perfectives by suffixation, also exist. In this paper, it is argued that Slavic aspect needs to be represented chiefly in terms of derivation, as the system of lexical rules relating logical structures of verbs that form aspectual pairs, although it also shows some features usually associated with inflection (as a grammatical category expressed by nuclear operators in the operator projection).

2007

Abstract This paper formally defines and defends a largely traditional account of the Polish aspectual system and explores its semantic consequences. Using an extended version of the secondary imperfectivisation test, together with what we call the secondary perfectivisation test, we define aspectual pairing at the word-formational level. The resulting system is traditional because (with the exception of a few verbs such as modals and habituals) it places every Polish verb in at least one aspectual pair.

Meta-Informative Centering in Utterances - Between Semantics and Pragmatics, Companion Series in Linguistics N°143, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 306 p., 2013

The main function of the linguistic category of aspect is perfectly reflected by the traditional term “aspect” or “view” which means that the speaker chooses a view of the situation s/he is speaking about. This view of a situation, or “point of view”, is first of all reflected by an internal analysis of the situation into parts: moments and stages. This necessary choice can be compared to that of a centre of attention in order to build an utterance (cf. the definition of subject and object in Chapter 4 in this volume). As such, aspect is an essential tool of the meta-informative structure of the utterance. The internal view of the situation is further completed by external view parameters concerning its repetition, the modification of its flow or intensity, the composition of several situations into one complex situation. This approach aims at integrating into a cohesive whole the great variety of uses described in the huge literature on verbal aspect in Slavic languages. The ASMIC theory is of great help in dealing with the blurred borderline between semantics and pragmatics in aspect usage, making it possible to propose some tentative way out of endless debates on Slavic aspectology: the problem of aspect pairs, the difference between aspect and Aktionsart, the amazing differences in the use of imperfective (IPF) verbs in Slavic languages and the use of the imperfect tense in French or progressive forms in English, etc. By reference to the three sorts of parameters we have defined (concerning situation types, situation internal and external view) we can distinguish precisely the different possible semantic types of perfective (PF) partners that can be derived from a simple IPF verb in Slavic languages depending on the type of semantic situation to which the simple verb refers (in a given context). The reference to the different values of the aspect parameters also makes it possible to distinguish among derived PF verbs those which can be considered as pertaining to grammatical aspect, as opposed to the lexical classes of derived verbs formed with prefixes having not only an aspectual perfectivising meaning but adding also various (spatial or abstract) meanings to the root verb.

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2021. , 2023

This article is concerned with the derivation of morphological aspect in Russian and Czech. It investigates four aspectual markers: prefixes, the secondary imperfective suffix, the semelfactive marker, and the habitual suffix. It argues that not only in Russian (see Tatevosov 2011; 2015) but also in Czech aspect interpretation is separated from prefixes and the secondary imperfective suffix. Moreover, it extends the separation to the semelfactive suffix and the habitual marker. Specific morphological aspect properties of Russian and Czech predicates are derived by an Agree analysis with minimality based on dominance relations in the complex verbal head.

Janda et al. (2013) propose an analysis of Russian aspectual prefixes as verb classifiers, arguing that the prefix which forms the 'natural perfective' from a given verb serves to classify that verb according to its semantic characteristics. This analysis contrasts with the traditional analysis of Russian aspect, described by Tixonov (1998) and others, in which natural perfectives are formed via the addition of 'empty' prefixes which contribute no semantic content of their own. In Tohono O’odham (formerly known as Papago, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in present-day Arizona and Mexico), as in Russian, there is a broad two-way distinction between two aspects, perfective and imperfective (Saxton 1982:232). In a fashion similar to the traditional aspectological assumption that there are lexically empty perfectivizing prefixes in Russian, traditional analyses of O’odham aspect posit a process of lexically empty perfectivization. In O’odham, the perfective is usually considered to be formed from the imperfective by truncation of the final consonant, in large part due to a lack of clear and separable semantic content in that segment (Mason 1950; Hale 1965; Saxton 1982; Zepeda 1983; Hill & Zepeda 1992; Kosa 2008). In this paper, I argue instead that O’odham imperfective verbs are formed from perfective verbs by suffixation, and that the suffixes involved are not ‘empty’, but serve a verb-classifying function similar to that of aspectual prefixes in Russian. Imperfectivizing suffixes have been proposed in the literature, by Dolores (1913) and Stonham (1994), but this hypothesis has not yet been systematically investigated. This paper represents a first attempt to do so. Data for this study are drawn from a nearly 5,000-verb database created from a two-volume dictionary of Tohono O’odham usage (Mathiot 1973a; 1973b). A preliminary analysis of these verbs supports a correlation between the final consonant of the imperfective and the verb’s lexical semantics, demonstrating that like those of Russian, O’odham aspectual morphemes fulfill the criteria for a verb classifier system as described by McGregor (2002), and providing further evidence that research on Slavic aspect can inform typological studies of verbal aspect cross-linguistically.

2003

Годишњак Филозофског факултета у Новом Саду, 2021

The aim of the paper is to investigate aspectual value of secondary aspectual verb phrase in Serbian in terms of both grammatical and lexical aspect (Aktionsart). The present analysis focuses on two secondary aspectualizers krenuti and stati, which when used as lexical verbs have the opposite meanings related to motion in space, but when they appear as phase construction heads both verbs modify the opening segment of the aspectual event. The central idea of the proposal is that event types in general largely depend on temporal structures which need to be contextualized before they are formally identifiable. In other words, contrary to traditional approaches which define lexical aspect as inherent to verb meaning, we claim that each verb form (or any lexical and/or grammatical form for that matter) has an underlying meaning through which it entertains systematic relations with other forms in a language (Hirtle 1982:40). We start form aspectual and Aktionsart features of krenuti and s...

Word Structure, 2021

Suffixless action nouns are mostly analysed as deverbal derivatives (e.g., výběr 'choice' < vybírat 'to choose.IPFV'), but dictionaries ascribe the reverse direction to some noun-verb pairs (útok 'attack' > útočit 'to attack.IPFV') despite being both formally and semantically close to the former type. The question is addressed in the present study of whether any linguistic features can be identified in pairs of suffixless nouns and directly corresponding verbs that would speak in favour of one or the other direction. The analysis of 250 Czech suffixless nouns reveals a correlation between the number of directly related verbs derived by suffixes and the direction as recorded in the dictionaries: While deverbal nouns correspond mostly to a pair of verbs with different (aspectchanging) suffixes (cf. výběr 'choice' : vybrat/vybírat 'to choose.PFV/IPFV'), nouns that are bases for verbs tend to share the root with a single (imperfective) verb (útok 'attack' : útočit 'to attack.IPFV'). This correlation is elaborated into two different paradigms, one being based on verbal roots and the other on nominal roots, which might be applicable in hypothesizing the direction also with nouns that are not covered by the dictionaries.