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Aspect
A framework for analysis
So far...
Tense locates events in time
Temporal location: ST = central tense = deictic
Temporal interpretation :
(i) tense morphemes (/z/. /d/, ?will)
(ii) time adverbials
So far...
Temporal interpretation is COMPOSITIONAL.
= the relations which obtain between three time intervals: ST/RT/ET
ST/RT = tense
ET/RT = aspect
RT/ST = existential status
TP 2
T’ 2
T AspPRT/ST 2
Asp’ 2
Asp VPET/RT 4
= ST/ ET
So far...
Time adverbials: aspectual information
ET/RT = aspect
ASPECT?
Today
Defining aspect
Lexical aspect/situation-type aspect
Grammatical/viewpoint aspect
Aspect
aspect as a functional category grammatical markers of aspect a functional projection headed by Asp
aspect < the temporal characteristics of the situationdenoted by the predicate (i.e. lexical meaning)
Aspect
(1)
He is dancing.
He has fixed the car.
He is knocking at the door.
He noticed her at once.
Aspect
[+/-perfective] [+/-progressive] [+/iterative]
[+/- durative] [+/- resultative] ….
information about the internal structure of the situation and about the way in which the speaker perceives this situation
Aspect
"the semantic domain of the temporal structure of situations (events and states) and their presentation." (Smith 1991)
Situation-type aspect
Situation types classify events/states in terms of clusters of semantic features
The linguistic unit which realizes situation type is "the verb constellation"
Aspect
situation-type aspect represents an interaction of:
(i) the lexical meaning of the verb
(ii) the internal and external arguments of the verb
(iii) certain adjuncts
Aspect
John ate an apple. = [+telic]
John ate popcorn. = [-telic]
the type of DO is relevant for the aspectual value of the predicate
Aspect
Students have been discovering this library for ages.
??John has been discovering this library for ages.
The subject is relevant for the aspectual value of the predicate
Aspect
John ran in the park. [-telic]
John ran to the park. [+telic]
Certain adjuncts are relevant for the aspectual value of the predicate
Aspect
Situation-types:
states
activities
definite change of state predicates
semelfactives
Aspect
John is tall.
John is running.
[+/- stative]
A stative situation = no internal change
= no dynamics
Aspect
John dances beautifully.
John made a chair.
[+/- telic] // [+/- resultative]
A telic event = has a natural endpoint at which the event is finished.
Aspect
John built a house. [+durative]
John noticed a mistake. [-durative]
[+/- durative]
Aspect
build a house, draw a horse
++-ACCOMPLISHMENTS
notice, spot+--ACHIEVEMENTS
run, dance, rain
-+-ACTIVITIES
be tall; stand, sit
-++STATES
Examples+/-telic +/-durative
+/-
stativeSituation-type
Aspect
John sneezed.
They hiccupped.
She knocked on the door.
The child jumped up and down.
+/- durative?
+/- stative?
+/- telic?
Aspect
The simplest possible situation:
[-stative]
[-durative]
[-telic]
= semelfactives (Smith 1991)
< Latin semel (once, a single time)
< Latin factum (event, occurrence)
Aspect
Vs. Comrie (1976)
Semelfactives:
[-stative]
[-durative]
[+telic]/ perfective
Aspect
= semantic classes of predicates
an idealization of types of situations characterized by a bundle of semantic features
each class: unique interpretive properties and unique distributional properties
indirect syntactic correlates of semantic concepts
Aspect
STATES / Stative verb constellations
John loves Mary.
Mary is a linguist.
Mary believes linguistics is fun.
Aspect
lack dynamics
hold for a moment or an interval, with an arbitrary final point
are homogeneous: when they hold for an interval they also hold for every sub-interval of that interval
Aspect
States normally resist the progressive:
*John is being tall.
*John is knowing English.
* John is owning a farm.
Aspect
BUT John is lying in the grass. John is standing in the doorway. You are being rude!
These statives allow a stage-level interpretation , they refer to a momentary situation they can occur in the progressive.
Aspect
a distinction which is relevant:
(i) stage-level predicates (SLPs)
= temporary or accidental properties
tired, angry, run
(ii) individual-level predicates (ILPs)
= (more or less) permanent or inherent properties
blond, intelligent, tall
Aspect
States:
(i) which allow a stage-level interpretation
(ii) which do not allow a stage-level interpretation, which are exclusively ILPs
TASK:
John is polite.
(i) or (ii) ?
Aspect
John is polite.
John is being polite.
The statue stands in the middle of the square.
Your box is standing in the middle of the room.
Aspect
My coat has a big zip.
*My coat is having a big zip.
The moat surrounds the castle.
*The moat is surrounding the castle.
Aspect
States which cannot be interpreted as stage-level predicates resist the progressive.
States which can be interpreted as stage-level predicates can be used in the progressive
Aspect
John is tall.
*John is being tall.
John is rude.
John is being rude.
Aspect
States usually resist the imperative:
*Know the answer!
*Be tall!
Vs. Be polite!
< [+/- control] (on the part of the subject )
Aspect
ACTIVITIES
dynamic
durative
they lack a natural endpoint [atelic]
run in the park, dance with John, rain, eat cherries, laugh, make noise, roll, rain, snow, play the piano.
Aspect
They consist entirely in the process
They are homogeneous
Aspect
Activities differ from change of state predicates
(i) Does x was V-ing (pragmatically) entail x has V-ed?
John was dancing. John has danced. John was making a cake. John has made a cake.
Aspect
(ii) =the entailment of stop +V-ing
John stopped running.
John stopped painting a picture.
= ?
Aspect
(iii) =the adverb ALMOST : different effects on activities and change of state predicates:
He almost ran.
He almost painted a picture.
He almost killed her.
Aspect
Accomplishment: Activity (Process) + Result
He painted a picture
[he did something] which caused [a picture to exist]
Aspect
ALMOST can modify one of the two parts:
(i) ALMOST [he did something] which caused [a picture to exist]
(ii) [he did something] which caused ALMOST [a picture to exist]
Aspect
Vs. activities:
He almost ran.
Aspect
=IN Phrases
*He ran in an hour.
He made a chair in an hour.
He noticed the mistake in a second.
Last week....
Situation-type aspect situation-types
states
activities
Task 1
Be tall
Be polite
Sit
Stand
Lie
Love
Task 2
Dance
Rain
Snow
Play chess
Play the piano
Run
Walk
Work
Task 3
Know Chinese
Speak Chinese to a friend
Like red wine
Drink wine
Work
Understand
Listen
Today
situation-types cont.
achievements
accomplishments
semelfactives
Class shift/recategorization
Viewpoint aspect
Aspect
ACHIEVEMENTS
instantaneous changes of state
with an outcome of a new state entail the existence of a result
the event consists of a single stage which is the very change of state they refer to.
+ dynamic, +telic, +instantaneous
Aspect
reach the top, win a race, arrive, find, notice, recognize, break
A. Ach. which have no preliminary stages B. Ach. which “allow” preliminary stages
+/- progressive
Aspect
*John is noticing a mistake.
* I am finding the book.
John is winning the race.
She is recovering slowly.
Aspect
In… vs. for…
John noticed her in a second.
*John noticed her for a second.
John recovered in a week.
*John recovered for a week.
Aspect
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
build a house, build a bridge, make a cake, draw a circle….
[+dynamic]
[+durative]
[+telic]
Aspect
complex events made up of a series of successive stages and a natural end point
= a process + an outcome
Aspect
they do not refer to homogeneous situations. Their internal stages are successive. But these stages and the final point are seen as a single event.
Aspect
Compatible with adverbials of completion: IN…
He made a chair in an hour.
They built the house in ten years.
Aspect
ambiguous with ALMOST
They almost killed her. He almost fixed the computer.
TASK: (i) ?(ii) ?
Aspect
SEMELFACTIVES
knock, hiccup, flap a wing, hiccup, sneeze, belch, burp, cough, jump
+ Instantaneous:
Their initial and final points are simultaneous/ they take place over the shortest possible interval
Aspect
+ the imperfective viewpoint or durative adverbials
He was jumping up and down.He was sneezing. He coughed for 5 minutes.
Reinterpreted as activities
The floating nature of situation types
= the interpretation of the contour of the whole situation: a SHIFT from one class to another/ class shift//recategorization
The floating nature of situation types
John ate. = activity
John ate sandwiches. = activity
John ate sandwiches for hours on end.
The floating nature of situation types
BUT:
John ate two sandwiches.
= a delimiter accomplishment
The floating nature of situation types
John wrote letters. activity
John wrote letters for two hours.
John wrote ten letters. accomplishment
John wrote ten letters in 30 minutes/ *for two hours.
The floating nature of situation types
Two tourists have discovered the beautiful forest.
Achievement
*Two tourists have been discovering the beautiful forest.
Tourists have been discovering that beautiful forest for years.
activity/iterativity < TOURISTS = bare plural/indefinite
The floating nature of situation types
An idea occurred to her. achievement
?? An idea occurred to her for weeks.
Strange ideas occurred to her for weeks.
activity/iterativity < STRANGE IDEAS
The floating nature of situation types
The nature of the arguments of the verb can cause a type shift/recategorization:
(i) the internal argument of V
(ii) the external argument of V
The floating nature of situation types
John ran. activityJohn ran for an hour.
John ran a mile.
an adverbial of extent [a delimiter] accomplishment John ran a mile *for an hour.John ran a mile in an hour.
The floating nature of situation types
The child swam. activity
The child swam for two hours.
The child swam to the shore.
a delimiter
Accomplishment
Aspect
The child swam to the shore in 10 minutes.
The floating nature of situation types
She knocked at the door. (single? Repeated?)
She REPEATEDLY knocked at the door. an event of the multiple type
The wheel revolved.
The wheel revolved all day.
The floating nature of situation types
Adverbials
can cause type shift/recategorization.
The floating nature of situation types
John made a chair. accomplishment
John was making a chair. activity
They reached the top. achievement
They were reaching the top. activity
The floating nature of situation types
PROG can cause type shift/recategorization
Conclusions so far
Aspect: the internal structure of situations
situation-type aspect (lexical aspect)
States
Activities
Accomplishments
Achievements
semelfactives
Task 4
Notice a mistake
Discover
Find
Recover
Task 5
Build a house
Draw a horse
Bake a cake
Break a window
Kill a cockroach
Task 6
Jump
Knock
Sneeze
Hiccup
Task 7
The glass broke.
John broke a glass.
The snow melted.
The sun melted the snow.
Task 7
The soup cooled.
John cooled the soup.
Play chess
Play a game of chess
Task 7
Know English
Speak English
Learn English
Play the piano
Play a concert
Reach the top of the mountain
Win a game
Task 7
They swept the floor clean.
He hammered the metal flat.
He shot them dead.
Aspect
So far... situation-type aspect
Aspect
He was dancing.
He was knocking at the door.
aspectual information is rendered both morphologically and lexically.
Aspect
"the semantic domain of the temporal structure of situations (events and states) and their presentation." (Smith 1991)
Aspect
Lexical aspect / situation-type aspect
Grammatical aspect/ viewpoint aspect
Aspect
He was dancing.
He has fixed the car.
He was knocking at the door.
He noticed her at once.
= a way ‘of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation.’ (Comrie 1976).
Aspect
The internal structure of situations takes up intervals of time in different ways:
(i) Presented as a whole
(ii)Focus on one “stage”
(iii)Focus on their iterativity
etc.
Aspect. Viewpoint …
aspect : encodes information with respect to the way in which the speaker chooses to present/to view the situation
as a whole [ +perfective]
only incompletely, with a focus on one stage of the situation. [+progressive]
= viewpoint aspect
Aspect
The perfective viewpoint
The progressive viewpoint
Aspect
John is reading.
John was reading.
John has read this book.
John had read the book.
John will read this book.
John will be reading this book when...
Aspect
Aspect = non-deictic
< it does not locate the event in time. Its interpretation is not related to ST.
tense = the ‘situation external time’
aspect =the ‘situation-internal time’
Aspect
Viewpoint aspect is grammaticized, i.e. it has grammatical markers:
a. [be + ing] = the imperfective// progressive viewpoint.
b. [have + en] = the perfective viewpoint
Aspect
It was Frank’s bad leg that woke him; it was paining him worse than ever in his old age.
Something was slithering towards him along the dark corridor floor.
America’s anti-hunting movement is tiny by British standards. But it is gathering momentum.
Aspect
stages of an event
focus on an internal stage/ on internal stages which lack both the initial and the final boundary
the situation is perceived as open/ going on/ incomplete
Aspect
= the predicate denotes only a ‘time-space slice’ of an ‘open’ situation whose limits are indefinite.
=the event does not end, it does not culminate, it is simply going on. It ‘holds’ at RT.
Aspect
the imperfective viewpoint presents situations as open, focussing on the internal stages of an event in progress.
It has grammatical markers in English
(i) [be – ing]
(ii) -ing
Aspect
John is dancing.
present 3rd sg , i.e. Tense and Agr.
They were dancing.
past 3rd pl.
Aspect
be= an auxiliary which carries tense and agreement information
-ing = the grammatical marker of the imperfective viewpoint (the progressive)
Aspect
TP2
Spec T’2
T AspPis 2
Asp’2
Asp VP
ing
Aspect
-ing: locates an event at/around RT
John is dancing.
ST=nowRT = ST [present]ET at/around RT [imperfective viewpoint]ET at/around ST [open situation]
Aspect
John was dancing.
ST=
RT ST
ET RT
ET ST
Aspect
John was dancing.
ST= now
RT before ST [PAST]
ET at/around RT [imperfective viewpoint]
ET at/around ST [open situation/on-going]
Aspect :the perfective viewpoint
THE PERFECTIVE VIEWPOINT:
the situation is presented as a WHOLE , it is “over”:
They have already washed the dishes.
John has fixed the computer.
Aspect
there are grammatical markers for the perfective viewpoint:
(i) [have –en]
(ii) –en
Aspect
Whenever [have –en] is present, ET presented as a whole and it is interpreted as instantiated before RT. Whether the situation is complete or not at RT depends on the lexical meaning of the verb.
Aspect
(i) Have –en
(ii) –en
–en = the marker of perfectivity. The auxiliary have: a mere carrier of Tense and Agreement
Aspect
TP2
Spec T’2
T AspPhave 2
Asp’2
Asp VP
-en
Aspect
John has left.
ST= now
RT = ST [Present]
ET before RT [Perfective]
ET before ST [historical existential status]
Aspect
John had left ten days before.
ST= now
RT before ST [ Past]
ET before RT [Perfective]
ET before ST [ historical existential status]
Aspect
At 5.00 tomorrow I will have already sent the letter.
ST = now
RT after ST [future]
ET before RT [perfective]
ET after ST [non-historical ES]
Aspect
So far:
the perfective viewpoint (-en) : ET prior to RT
the imperfective viewpoint (-ing): ET spans RT (or ET at/around RT)
neutral viewpoint (0 marker): ET=RT.
Aspect
Aspectual interpretation:
< situation-type aspect + viewpoint aspect
