Initial Boundary and Telicity in the Semantics of Perfectivity

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.

Resultatives represent clusters of temporal features (a state resulting from a change of state) which require telic stems as lexical input. In Slavic, all resultative constructions are based on participles. Resultatives often turn into perfects and passives. Most essential in this development is the extension of admissible lexical input to the resultative construction, by which, con-comitantly, the requirement that the verb stem be telic is lost. Simultaneously, Slavic participles distinguish perfective (pfv.) and imperfective (ipfv.) aspect. As a grammatical category, aspect is not restricted (or defined) by telicity, although telicity was a factor motivating the rise of the pfv.:ipfv.-opposition, and the association between telic events and pfv. aspect is very close. Considering this, the question whether ipfv. participles have been, or are, used in constructions other than resultatives needs to be investigated. We should ask whether the presumably original (i.e. Common Slavic) resultative function has been preserved by ipfv. participles, or whether they have participated in a perfect or, alternatively, in a canonical passive or some similar construction operating on voice. This paper sheds light on these questions. It first provides a survey of resultatives and perfects in Slavic through space and time, asking for the relation between telicity and the development of the pfv.:ipfv. distinction. Ipfv. participles used in constructions that developed out of resultatives behave in one of two ways: Either ipfv. participles show the same resultative value as their pfv. counterparts, a behaviour which can be considered an archaism prior to the strengthening of the aspect opposition , or, on the contrary, the aspect of the participles rather reliably restricts the range of functions which are known for the respective Slavic variety in the active voice. In these cases, ipfv. participles in predicative use have been integrated into the sets of functions that generally govern the choice of aspect in the particular Slavic variety. This dominance of aspect applies even if telicity constrains the choice of the aspect of the participle or the applicability of the entire construction.

Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2021, 2023

The paper examines the so-called sequence of similar events (SSE) interpretation in Serbo-Croatian (SC), which emerges with telic predicates expressed by imperfective verbs in the presence of bare plural objects. I show that this is an interpretation that, just as in English, allows the use of both durative adverbials (DurAds) and time-span adverbials (TSAds) at the same time. I argue that TSAds, as standardly assumed, modify a telic event predicate, while DurAds merge once the predicate has been made homogeneous/atelic by the plural operator (contra MacDonald's 2008 claim that DurAds combine with telic predicates in such cases). The fact that the SSE interpretation is available in SC (or Slavic more generally) for imperfective verbs-including simple ones-suggests that in Slavic there is a syntactic projection responsible for telicity analogous to that in English, and telicity of a verbal predicate can be triggered by the quantity properties of its internal arguments.

2010

Proceedings of ConSOLE XXX, 2022

The paper examines perfective verbs with the delimitative prefix po-(podel) combining with durative adverbials (DurAds) in Slavic, primarily based on examples from Serbian. Since DurAds are standardly assumed to diagnose atelicity, such examples constitute the main argument for separating Slavic perfectivity from telicity (e.g. Borik 2006), and pose the major obstacle for the view that perfectives in Slavic are telic (e.g. Łazorczyk 2010). I propose that DurAds are generated in the QP (a telicity projection), while podel combines with the QP, specifiying a telic predicate for singularity. Consequently, all prefixed perfective verbs in Slavic are necessarily telic.

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).

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.

2023

The dissertation investigates (apparent) mismatches between (im)perfectivity and (a)telicity in Slavic verbs as reflected through the grammatical and semantic status of their combinations with time-span adverbials (TSAds) and durative adverbials (DurAds). A novel analysis of traditional Slavic aspectual markers is proposed in light of these ‘mismatches’. Based primarily on data from Serbo-Croatian, but with reference to other Slavic languages, it is argued that Slavic and English differ minimally regarding verbal aspect. In Slavic, like in English, telicity is computed in the Q(uantity)P(hrase), a projection immediately above the vP that specifies atomic units for a given predicate. The QP is licensed by moving a bounded internal argument from the vP to Spec,QP, or by merging a (c)overt measure phrase directly in Spec,QP. The projection of QP is diagnosed by TSAds. DurAds merge in projections combining with homogeneous predicates. In the event domain, bounded DurAds merge in Spec,QP, licensing telicity, while unbounded DurAds modify the vP. Bare vPs are unspecified for telicity, and thus compatible with both atelic and telic contexts, and both imperfective and perfective viewpoints. Prefixes are generated as specifiers of NumP, a projection immediately above the QP responsible for number in the verbal domain, where they specify a telic predicate for singularity via Spec-Head Agreement. They carry the feature [SG], which is transmitted to the number head with an open value. The suffix -n(u) is an exponent of the number head when it enters the derivation as specified for singularity. It is thus argued that Slavic perfectivity and telicity are different but related categories: Slavic perfectivity corresponds to singularity, which presupposes telicity. The proposed view of Slavic aspectual composition brings several theoretical benefits. First, it offers a unified analysis of all Slavic perfective verbs as singular telic predicates. This analysis builds upon the insights of Krifka (1992), Paslawska & von Stechow (2003), Arsenijević (2007a), who argue that Slavic perfectivity depends on telicity. Additionally, it incorporates Kagan’s (2008, 2010) semantic analysis of Slavic perfective and imperfective verbs as verbal counterparts of number (singular and plural) in the nominal domain. Further, the division of labor between the QP and NumP enables accounting for the effects on the aspectual composition of both internal arguments and measure phrases, on the one hand, and prefixes and the suffix -n(u), on the other: the former influence telicity, i.e. measure out the event, while the latter restrict telic predicates to singularity. The dissertation also offers a unified approach to telicity in Slavic and English, by proposing that bounded internal arguments and measure phrases perform the same role in these languages: they license telicity, i.e. the projection of QP. Slavic and English differ in how they license singular telicity. This is evidenced by the fact that telic predicates licensed by bounded internal arguments and measure phrases display similar behavior in Slavic and English in contexts other than singularity, e.g. plural telicity. The difference in singularity between these languages correlates with morphological markers available in them: in Slavic, but not in English, there are overt singularity morphemes – prefixes and the suffix -n(u).

Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 1980