aspect: problem of lexicon and morphology
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Chapter
Aspect: Problem
of lexicon and
morphology
In this chapter
we
outline several
of the
influential l inguistic analyses
of
aspect in the literature, and examine how these analyses treat grammatical
aspect, lexical aspect, and the interaction between the two. We will begin
by looking at Comrie s analysis of perfective and imperfective aspect,
an d then proceed to Ven dler s categorization of verbs and times, Smith s
two-component theory
of
aspect,
and Kle in s view on
aspect
in
terms
of
the relationship between topic time an d situation time. W e end
with
a
discussion
of how
these various linguistic analyses bear
on
ch i ld ren s
acquisition of aspect.
2 1 rammatical aspect
2.1.1. Perfective an d imperfective
The grammatical encoding of aspectual notions, which we call grammati
cal
aspect is
realized
in
different
languages
in
different
ways,
for
exam-
ple, throug h the use of inflectional morphology, derivation al m orp ho l-
ogy, auxiliary,
or
periphrastic constructions. This variation does
not
mean, however, that grammatical aspect
is
wholly idiosyncratic
and
language-specific in the way it is encoded. Typo logical studies of how
languages
of the
world encode aspectual notions have uncovered recur-
ring patterns of aspectual marking (Comrie 1976; Bybee 1985; Dah l
1985; Bybee and Dahl 1989; Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994). In this
section,
we
characterize these grammatical aspectual patterns
and
show
how
they are related
to
each other.
The
most basic aspectual opposition that
is
often
encoded grammat i -
cally is that of perfective an d imperfective. As noted in Chapter 1,
perfective
aspect presents
a
situation
as an
unan alyzed whole (external
view), whereas imperfective aspect presents a situation from within
(internal view). In the following example from English,
(1 )
John built a house.
(2 ) John was building a house.
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12 Aspect
sentence (1) is aspectually perfective, whereas sentence (2) is aspectually
imperfect ve. In
sentence
(1), the
perfective aspect
of the
verb
reports th e
situation in its entirety, w ith the speaker presenting the situation in clu d-
ing
it s initial and terminal points. Thus, sentence (1) entails completion:
John
finished
building a house. In contrast, the
imperfective
aspect in
sentence (2) communicates the internal structure of the event, without
regard
to its
beginning
and end
points. Thus
th e
meaning
of the
sentence
is
non-committal
as to
whether
or not
John
has
finished building
th e
house .
Comrie
(1976: 25) proposed th e follow ing hierarchical classification
of aspectual categories.
Perfective Imperfective
Habitual
(Continuous)
(Non-progressive) Progressive
Figure 2.1. Classification
of
aspectual opp ositions (adapted from Comrie 1976:
25 )
Comrie
divided imperfective aspect into habitual
and
continuous,
and
further
subdivided continuous into progressive
and
non-progressive.
Let
us characterize these categories from th e bottom up, following Comrie
(1976).
Progressive aspect is a category of imperfective that has the properties
of dynam icity and change as its defining features: typically it denotes a
dynamic, continuously changing action in progress, and is generally
incompatible with Stative predicates *He is knowing th e answer).
Habitual
aspect denotes
a
situation that spans
an
extended period
of
time, typic ally inv olv ing repetition of an action over multiple occasions.
English
has a
habitual aspect marker used to) which
is
used
in
past-time
reference only.
Imperfective aspect, some times referred to as general imperfective,
denotes both habitual
and
continuous i.e., progressive
and
non-
progressive) qualities.
For
example, Romance languages grammatically
encode
th e
perfective-imperfective distinction
in the
past,
and the
imper-
fective past can describe a past action in progress (i.e., progressive), a
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Grammatical aspect
13
past state i.e.,
non-progressive),
6
and a past habit. For instance, the
Spanish imperfective past form can express the equivalents of
he was
dancing
he
loved Mary
and he
used
to
dance?
It
is interesting to note here that
Comrie
failed to explicitly character-
ize the categories of continuous and non-progressive. He defined con-
tinuousness
in the
negative, that
is, as
imperfectivity that
is not
habitual ,
and he did not define non-progressive Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca
1994: 138). T his m ay be related to the fact that the aspectual markers
that
specifically denote these categories
are
extremely
rare.
8
For
this
reason, the two categories appear in parenthesis in Figure 2.1.
2.1.2. Grammaticization
of
aspect markers
A s
noted
in
Chapter
1,
there
is a
tendency
for the
meanings
and
func -
tions of tense-aspect markers to change over time. For example, it is
claimed that progressive aspect markers can develop into more general
imperfective aspect markers by generalizing their applicability to habit-
ual
and
non-progressive situations.
In
this subsection,
we
discuss gram-
maticization of tense-aspect markers to explain how different tense-
aspect
markers
are
related
to
each other, both semantically
and
histori-
cally.
Building on
research
from
historical
linguistics and
crosslinguistic
survey of typologically diverse languages, Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca
1994) proposed hypotheses concerning the gram m aticization of tense-
aspect-m odality markers. Pa rticularly relevant to our research are two
hypotheses concerning the universal paths of the developm ent of tense-
aspect markers. According to these authors, first, there is a unive rsal
tendency for resultative and completive markers to grammaticize into
perfect
markers, which
in turn
become perfective
or
simple past markers.
Second, there is a tende ncy for a progressive ma rker to de velop into a
general imperfective marker
by
expanding
it s
reference
to
habi tual
and
stative
situations; in terms of Comrie's hierarchy see Figure 2.1), imper-
fective
aspect markers develop from th e bottom
up.
9
Here,
we
would like
to
discuss
th e
perfective path
in
more detail,
primarily to explicate the nature of the category perfect. Bybee, Perkins,
and
Pagliuca 1994) claimed that comp letive and resultative aspect
markers grammaticize into perfect markers. Completive markers denote
an action performed completely
and
thoroughly ,
and
resultative
denotes
a state that has been brought about by a prior action. These markers then
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14 Aspect
extend their meaning and become perfect markers, which denote
past
action with
current relevance . English perfect have + past participle) is
a typical example of this category (Dahl 1985), wh ich has such uses as
perfect of result , perfect of
experience ,
etc. Perfect further g ram-
maticizes and loses its curr ent releva nce restriction, and becomes a
perfective
aspect marker
and/or
a simple past tense marker.
It is often the case that a past tense marker also has an aspectual value.
For example, many European languages (e.g., French, Spanish, German,
Dutch) have th e perfect form gramm aticizing into a past
tense form
which also has a perfective value, although the degree of grammaticiza-
tion differs. Thus,
in
these languages, they have
two
past tense ma rkers
-
older past forms
(often
referred to as preterite), and more recent past
forms
(auxiliary plus participle). As noted in Chapter 1, what we see
here
is a continuous development of tense-aspect markers, which often makes
it very
difficult
to explicitly determine whether a grammatical form is a
tense marker or an aspect marker.
Interestingly, this historical developm ent charted for tense-aspect
markers has been found to have a parallel in language acquisition. In
Chapters 3 through 6, we will discuss in more detail the claim that chil-
dren use
past tense marking
first as a resultative
aspect marker
and
then
as a pure past tense marker, and that progressive markers are initially
restricted to the action-in-progress meaning and only later develop more
varied meanings
(e.g.,
Antinucci
and
Miller 1976; Bloom, Lifter,
and
Hafitz
1980; Shirai
an d
Andersen 1995). This claim about
the
acquisi-
tion of tense-aspect morphology has also been discussed within the
larger issue of how and why there are parallel processes in language
acquisition and historical change (Slobin 1977, 1997; Ziegeler 1997).
Lexical Aspect: Vendler Smith and Comrie
Gram m atical aspect provides a certain am ount of inform ation for the
interpretation of the aspectual meaning of verbal predicates, but most
linguists
accept that
we
need
to
consider another type
of
aspect
-
lexical
aspect. Lexical aspect (also known as inherent aspect, situation aspect, or
Aktionsart) refers to the semantic characteristics inherent in the lexical
content of words, usually verbs or verb phrases, that are defined in terms
of the temporal properties of given situations that the verbs describe.
Because lexical aspect deals with lexical semantics,
it is
generally re-
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Lexical aspect
15
garded
as a
lexical category
as
opposed
to the
grammatical category
of
grammatical
aspect .
As a starting point for our illustration, Ve ndler s (195 7) four -w ay
classification represents an early attempt to
categorize
lexical aspect.
10
He
classified
verbs or verb phrases into
four
categories
with
respect to the
temporal properties that they encode:
activities, accomplishments,
achievements, and states. According to Vendler,
activity
verbs
encode
situations as consisting of successive phases over tim e w ith no inh ere nt
endpoint, for example, walk, run, an d swim. Accomplishment verbs also
characterize situations as hav ing successive phases, but they
differ
f rom
activity verbs
in
that they encode
a
natural endpoint
and
often
a
change
of state, for example, paint
a picture, build a house,
and
run a mile.
Vendler illustrated the contrast between activities and accomplishments
by
the difference between ru n and run a mile The sentence John w as
running
entails that John ran, whereas
the
sentence
John
w as
running
a
mile does not entail that John ran a mile, that is, John m igh t have stopped
halfway. Like accomplishments, achievement verbs also encode a natural
endpoint, but they
differ
from accomplishments and activities in that
they
encode events
as
punctual
and
instantaneous, that
is, as
having
no
duration, such as in
fall,
win the
race,
and
reach
the
summit.
Strictly
speaking, every event occupies time. But speakers can construe given
verbs as denoting situations having no time duration. Finally, state verbs,
in
contrast
to the
other three
categories,
encode situations
as
homogene-
ous, with
no
successive phases
or
endpoints, involving
no
dynamici ty ,
such
as
know
and
love Thus, state verbs cannot
usually be
combined
with progressive aspect that marks change and development from one
phase to the next (e.g.,
John is know ing the story
is odd).
1 1
These
categories can be schematically represented as follows (Andersen
1990).
State
love, contain, know
Activity run,
walk, swim
Accomplishment
paint
a
picture, build
a
house
Achievement X fall,
drop, win the race
In this
schematization, a
solid line
is
used
to
represent states, because
states have no apparent beginnin g point or endpoint and endure ind efi-
nitely unless some external force changes them. The wavy lines for
activities and accom plishments indicate the dyn am ic d uratio n of an
action, while ÷ for accomplishments and achievements represents a
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16 Aspect
punc tua l point
of
change
of
state, signa ling telicity (i.e., na tura l en d-
poin t ) .
Ve nd ler s analysis, now proba bly the most w idely accepted and the
best know n, has become an imp ortant starting point for subsequen t
research
on
lexical aspect.
For
example, Smith
(1997)
recently modified
this
system
and
applied
it to an
analysis
of
English, French, Chinese,
Russian, and Navajo. Smith s modification involved main ly th e addition
of semelfactive verbs, such as
cough
tap and knock in English and
their equivalents
in
other languages.
She
argued that semelfactives
resemble achievements in being punctual , but differ from achievements
in that seme lfactives encode no endpoint. In particular, semelfactives and
achievements behave differently with progressive aspect ma rking: when
semelfactives are ma rked with progressive, they are interpreted as
speci-
fying
a repeated even t (e.g., coughin g or knoc king several times); wh en
achievements are marked with progressive, they are interpreted as ind i-
cating preliminary, detachable stages
of the
event rather than
a repeated
event (e.g., John was reaching the summit means that John was at a stage
just prior to being at the summit, not that he arrived at the summit several
times).
In
addition
to
Sm ith, other researchers hav e extended V en dle r s
analysis
in other ways. For exam ple, instead of u sing a categorical fo u r-
way classification, some linguists have classified verbs
as
pairs
of
con -
trasts, such as stative versus dynamic verbs, telic versus atelic verbs, and
punctual versus durative verbs
(Comrie 1976). These
pairs
of
contrast
have
th e
advantage
of
making
the
semantic features
of
lexical aspect
explicit
and
transparent. These contrasts
can be
reanalyzed
as
features,
for example, [±dynamic], [±telic],
and
[±punctual] . Table
2.1
presents
such
an analysis, adapted from Smith
(1991),
to characterize
Vendler's
four
categories plus semelfactives.
Table 2.1. Semantic
features
for the
five
categories of
lexical
aspect
(adapted
from
Smith 1991: 30)
states
activities acc om plishm ents semelfactives achievements
dynamic
+ + + +
punctual
telic
+ - +
W e
should point
out a confusion
that
has
been
in the
literature
on
lexical
aspect since Vendler (1957). Vendler did not use the terms lexical
aspect, Aktion sart, situation aspect, or inherent aspect. He w as sp eaking
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Lexical aspect 17
of time
schemata .
However, it is not clear whether time schemata are
part of the lexical semantic contents of verbs, or part of the temporal
properties of situations to which the verbs refer. Admittedly, it is not
always
easy to separate lexical semantics from the objects and situation s
to
which
th e
lexical items refer.
But we
would like
to
make this distinc-
tion here, for reasons that will become clear later on. Our intention in this
book is to treat lexical aspect as lexical categories according to the kinds
of temporal properties that the lexical items inherently encode, not as
situational categories according to the temporal properties that the
situations typically display. W e contend
that
situatio nal properties are not
necessarily reflected directly in lexical semantics, and that the confusion
between the two often leads to negative consequences in the study of
language acquisition (see
further
discussion in Chapter 3).
The ab stract concepts of, for ex am ple, states and activities can be
viewed
as
universal semantic notions, independent
of
particular lan-
guages. In other words, every languag e may have lexical means to
encod e states and activities. How ever, w hic h verbs encode states and
which encode activities
i s
languag e-specific,
and can be
determined only
within the context of a given language. Acc ordingly, children have to
learn to identify wh ich verbs encode w hich tempo ral properties of a
situation in the language being acquired. An example from Comrie
(1976) clearly demonstrates the need to disting uish between in her ent
verb m eanings and temporal p roperties of situations. Acco rding to
Comrie, English
and
Portuguese treat perception verbs (e.g., see
hear}
differently. English treats them
as
stative,
an d
these verbs consequently
do not accept progressive marking , while Portuguese treats them as no n-
stative, so they can n atura lly accept progressive m ark ing . Take Japanese
fo r another example. Japanese does not have a stative verb correspo nd-
ing to the
Engl ish
know. In
order
to
express
a
notion like
/ know him
Japanese speakers use the verb
siru
which means 'come to
k n o w
and
attach to it the durative aspect m arker -teiru to denote the resultative state
after
coming
to
know him. Thus,
in
Japanese,
siru
is an
achievement
verb. These examples show that verbs
in
different languages
m ay
differ
with respect to their lexical characteristics even tho ug h they refer to the
same situations. Such crosslinguistic differences show that there is no
one-to-one mapping between given types of situations and given types of
lexical
items.
Having emphasized
the
importance
of
this distinction,
w e
must
ac-
knowledge that
correspondences
between lexical contents
and
situational
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18 spect
properties are not totally arbitrary. There are clear cases where languages
do not differ. For example, there is pro bab ly no lang uag e that treats the
verb referring to killing someone as stative, and the verb jump in any
language has to somehow encode the pu nctu ality of the action as part of
its
meaning. Thus, while
it is
important
for
theoretical
an d
empirical
reasons to disti ngu ish classifications of situations from classifications of
lexical aspect categories, in practice, they
often
coincide.
2 3 Lexical aspect
and
gramm atical aspect
As discussed above, it is clear that interpretation of the aspectual proper-
ties
of a
sentence cannot
be
determined without considering
the
contri-
bution of the lexical aspect of the verb. It is also clear that the aspectual
meaning
of a sentence can, by and large, be predicted on the basis of
which gram m atical aspect is com bined with wh ich lexical aspect cate-
gory.
One
explicit proposal
in
this regard
is
that
of
Smith
(1991,
1997).
In this section, we present our view of how aspectual m eaning is dete r-
mined as a function of the combinatorial properties o f lexical aspect and
grammatical aspect
on the
basis
of
Smith's theory
of
aspect
and the
grammaticization theory
of Bybee,
Perkins,
an d
Pagliuca (1994).
Smith
(1997)
proposed a comprehensive theory of aspect, which she
labeled
as a
two-component theory .
The two
components
are
what
she calls situation type
and viewpoint
aspect , which roughly
correspond to what we have described so far as lexical aspect and
grammatical
aspect ,
respectively. Smith's theory attempts to account
for diverse aspectual phenomena related to the interaction between
situation type (achievement, accomplishment, activity, state, and
semel-
factive) and viewpoint aspect (perfective, imperfective, and neutral)
12
.
W e have been using
the
term
lexical
aspect
of
verbs ,
but
strictly
speaking, the lexical aspect valu e is determ ined by both the verb and its
arguments, which Smith
(1997)
calls
th e
verb constellation. Ex am ples
include [John love Mary] (state), [John run] (activity), [John run a m ile]
(accomplishment), [John reach the summit] (achievement), and [John
jump] (semelfactive). Note that what is inside [ ] is not a linguistic form
but th e
proposition underlying
it,
wi thout
any
verb morphology
to
signal
the viewpoint aspect. In such instances, we are talking about the semantic
structure of
verb-plus-arguments without
an y
value imposed
by
gram-
matical aspect.
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Lexical and grammatical aspect 19
Another component of the two-component theory is viewpoint aspect.
Smith
used the
term viewpoint
since it is essentially the speaker 's
choice as to which aspectual perspective should be used. To describe the
fact
that John ran a mile yesterday, the speaker can choose to present it
from either
a
perfective viewpoint John ran a mile)
or an
imperfective
viewpoint John w as running a mile). If the story is about what happ ened
while
John w as jogging y esterday, imperfective viewpoint wo uld be used.
If th e story is about what John did
after
he ran a mile, then perfective
viewpoint would be used.
13
The speaker chooses to use a certain combi-
nation of lexical items (with lexical aspect value) and m orph ology
(with
gramm atical aspect v alue), wh ich results in a part icular intended mean-
ing, such as action-in-progress, completion, stative, etc.
2 3 1 Interaction
between lexical aspect
and grammatical
aspect
How do particular comb inations of lexical aspect and gram ma tical aspect
result
in
particular interpretations
of a
sentence? What
are the
principles
behind
it? In
this subsection,
we
present
an
account
of how the
interac-
tion
between the two levels of aspect works. O ur account differs f rom
Smith 's in minor details, but the principles are essentially the same.
Imperfective
and progressive aspect
As
discussed in
2.1,
both general im perfective and progressive m arkers
have the same viewpoint aspect value, except that the progressive view-
point is [+dynamic]. Therefore, they show very similar distributions in
their interaction with lexical aspect. Since imperfective viewpoint presents
a situation from
within,
disregarding it s beginning or endpoint , it re-
quires duration upon which the internal view can be imposed. If there is
no duration, it is impossible to treat the beginning point or endpoint
separately. This requirement predicts that some achievements are incom-
patible with imperfective aspect,
as
seen
in the
ungrammatical i ty
of
*H e
is noticing a friend.
To see the properties of lexical aspect clearly, we repeat the
fol lowing
diagram
from
section
2.2
here,
with th e
addition
of
semelfactives.
The
punctual poin t of ac tion for seme lfactives is represented by ·, since it is
not
telic,
but atelic.
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20 Aspect
State love contain know
Activi ty run walk
swim
Accompl ishment ~ — „ ~ ~ X
paint
a
picture
build a house
Achievement X fall drop win the race
Semelfactive
jump knock cough
Although achievements do not normally allow for an internal view of
imperfective
aspect, it is sometimes possible to impose an inte rna l view
on an achievement verb by focu sing on the preliminary stages of an
event (i.e., th e process leading up to the endpoint). To elaborate, John
was reaching the summit means that John was at a stage jus t prior to
being
at the
summit,
not
that
he was in the
middle
of
reaching
the
sum-
mit. As another example, Joh n is winning the race is appropriate when
Jo hn s horse is ahead of all other horses in the race, even tho ug h he has
not a ctua lly reached the finishing l ine.
Semelfactive
is
another pu nctu al, instantaneou s category that imp lies
no
durat ion.
In
this case,
th e
speaker
can
only impose
an
internal view
on
the situatio n wh en the du ration is created by repetition. Thus, John
is
jumping normally refers to
John's
repetitive acts of jum ping , that is,
multiple jum ps in a single activity, which Smith (1997) called Multiple-
event Activity.
14
In
contrast to achievements and semelfactives, categories that have
duration, i .e., activities, accomplishments, and states, can readily accept an
internal view. Both general imperfective a nd progressive ma rkers y ield
the
action-in-progress
meaning w hen attached to activity and accom-
plishment
verbs, focusing
on the
dynamic durat ion
of the
si tuation
denoted
by the
verbs.
With respect to
stative
verbs, the pic ture is a little diffe rent. Stative
verbs do not usual ly combine with progressive aspect: a large set of
English stative verbs and their translation equivalents in other languages
do not norm ally accept progressive marking, includin g psyc hologic al
and cognitive verbs such as wan t need like love believe and know
perception verbs such as see hear and feel and relational verbs or verbs
of existence such as resemble possess have and be. The incompat ibi l i ty
seems
to be
that since progressive aspect presents
a
situation
as
ongoing,
it requires that
th e
situation have successive phases, i.e., that
i t be dy-
nam ic, whereas the cogn itive, perception, and relation or existence verbs
indicate only undifferentiated
and
hom ogeneou s situations. Progress
presupposes
th e
dynamic development
of a
situation. Thus, progressive
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exical and grammatical aspect 21
aspect comb ines natu rally with activity and ac com plishm ent verbs, but
not w ith stative verbs. How ever, unde r ce rtain circu ms tances some Stative
verbs do appear in the progressive, w hich we will call stative progres-
sive . For example, Smith (1983) showed that progressive aspect can be
used with stative verbs to present a state as an event, such as in John is
believing in ghosts these days.
Another example is
John is being stupid
in
wh i ch
th e
stative progre ssive refers
to a
part icular behavior
of
J o h n '
s
at
th e
time
of
speech,
in
contrast
to
John is stupid which refers
to a
general characteristic attributed to John. John is being stupid does not
make any claim about John's intell igence before or after the moment of
speech, but rather that John is behav ing s tupidly.
General imperfective aspect, in contrast to progressive, is na tur all y
com patible with stative verbs and does not yield special
m e a n ings .
15
Note that general im perfective has the features of [+intemal view ] and
[ -dynamic] , and therefore, it can easily find durat ion in a state, and it
does not trigger the action-in-progress m ean ing because stative verbs
also have the feature
[-dynamic] .
The obtained meaning of general
imperfective with stative verbs
is
thus 'state co n t i n u i n g ' ,
as in La
mer
etait calme
'the sea was c a lm ' in
Frenc h (Sm ith 1997: 197)
or Wuli-de
deng kai-zhe 'the light in the room is on in Chinese.
Perfective aspect
Perfective aspect combines naturally with achievement verbs, because by
def ini t ion, perfective aspect presents a si tuation as a single whole, and
achievement verbs provide ideal instantiation
of
such
a
v iewpoin t
in
t h a t
they depict pu nctual s i tuat ions a s single points wi thout internal s t ructure.
Because achievements involve an endpoint , thei r combinat ion with
perfective aspect denotes
the
complet ion
of a
si tuat ion, al though
in
this
case
th e
beginning point
of the
situation coincides with
it s
poin t
of
complet ion.
Perfective aspect also na tural ly combines wi th accom plishments and is
norm ally interpreted as indica ting the com pletion of a si tuation, since by
definition accomplishments incorporate an endpoin t , and perfect ive
aspect views
the
situation
as a
single whole external ly , with both init ial
and
terminal points.
For
example,
John built a
house
not
only presents
the building process as a single whole, but also indicates that the house
w as
indeed finished.
The not ion of complet ion is not appl icable to uses of the perfec t ive
with activity verbs, since activit ies encode situatio ns with
no
i n h e ren t
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22
Aspect
endpoints (Comrie 1976; Lyons 1977). For example, John ran cannot
indicate
that John completed
his
running.
To ask Has John finished
runnin is not
appropriate unless
th e
speaker
has in
mind
in
advance
some delimiter to the distance or time John ran.
John ran,
then, indicates
simply
that John engaged
in the
activity
of
running
for a
while
an d
that
at
some arbitrary (unsp ecified) point this activity terminated.
In the
same
vein, pe rfective aspect with semelfactive verbs conveys
a
termination
and
not
a
completion
of the
situation (e.g.,
John coughed).
Earlier
we
pointed
out
that
the progressive aspect is not compatible
with
stative verbs because of the verbs lack of dyn amic me anin g.
Perfective
aspect
is not
c ompatible with stative verbs, either. This
is
because stative verbs
do not
include either
a
beginning point or
an
endpoint in
their temporal structure. Therefore, perfective aspect, which
includes
both
the
beginning
and end
points
of a situation in its
focus,
cannot normally combine with stative verbs.
In
rare cases when
th e
combination is
possible,
it
indicates
an
entry into
a
state
as in Then
suddenly I knew it
by
focusing
on the
punctual point
of
entry into that
state. This
in
effect translates
a
stative verb into
an
achievement verb.
The interaction discussed in this subsection is summarized in Table
2.2, wh ich covers the most common grammatical aspect types, alth ou gh
it is not
meant
to be
exhaustive
or
without exception. Excluded from
our
analyses here
are the
more marked cases
of
habitual reference (e.g.,
He is
walking to school these days) an d
futurate (e.g.,
W e are eating out
tonight), which
can be
obtained with
any of the
dynamic verb classes.
Table
2.2. Intera ction
of
lexical
aspect
with grammatical
aspect
State Activi ty
Accomplishment
Achievement
Imperfective
Progressive
Perfective
state
??
stative prog
prog
prog
?? termination
inchoative
prog
prog
completion
prel im, stage
prelim, stage
99
completion
Semelfactive
iterative prog
iterative prog
termination
prog
=
progressive
prelim,
stage
=
prel iminary
stages of
event
?? =
questionable combination
Our discussion in this subsection, as summarized in Table 2.2, shows
clearly that there are combinatorial constraints or compatibility between
certain grammatical
aspect and
certain lexical aspect. Comrie (1976)
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Lexical and gramm atical aspect 23
discussed this kind of lexical-grammatical relationships with the n a t u -
ralness
of com binat ion principle . According to
Comrie,
perfect ive
aspect combines natu rally with pu nctu al verbs, for exam ple, because
perfective aspect presents a situation as a whole wi thout regard to its
internal structure and punctual verbs
encode
a s i tuat ion as a s ingle point
lacking internal structure. Conversely,
imperfective
aspect is not com-
patible with punctual verbs (except semelfactives, which
can be
const rued
iteratively), because imperfective aspect presents a situation as having an
internal structure while
a
punctual verb
encodes it as a
point lacking
internal structure.
Activi ty
verbs lend themselves naturally to the internal
perspective of impe rfective aspect because they encode the successive
phases of an event over t ime. Such interactions between lexical and
grammatical aspect presumably originate in certain natural relationships
between events in reali ty. For exam ple, w hen w e know that a si tuation
comes
to its end
with
a
clear result, this situation
has
probably al ready
become
a past event, and we are therefore l ikely to commen t on its
completion by means of perfective aspect (Brown
1973).
Many s i tua-
t ions with
an end
result last
for
such
a
brief time that they
are
almost
certain to have ended before one can comment on them, such as si tua-
tions denoted
by
verbs like drop fall
and
crash. These situations almost
exclude the internal perspective of imperfective aspect. In sum, there are
likely
to be
strong associations
in the
real world between resultat ivity
or
telicity and the use of past and perfective verb forms, and between atelic
activities and the use of
present
and
progressive verb forms.
3 Variation cross l ngu ges
in gr mm ticiz tion
o f
aspect
As noted earl ier, there is variation across lan guag es in how aspec tual
notions
are
grammaticized. There
are two
types
of
variation
to
consider:
in the pattern of grammaticization and in the degree of grammaticiza-
t ion.
First,
different languages develop
different
types of grammat ica l as-
pect,
and
some languages
do not
have grammatical aspect (e.g., Hebrew,
Finnish).
In
terms
of
combinatorial properties
of
aspect
and
tense,
Ro m ance langua ges have a perfective-imperfective d ist inction only in the
past tense. Many Slavic languages , al though grammatical ly marking both
tense and aspect, do not have perfective aspect in the present tense
(e.g.,
Polish, Russian). In terms of combinatorial properties of grammatical
aspect and lexical aspect, the Japanese imperfective marker -te i- c a n n o t
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24
Aspect
focus
on the prel iminary stage of an event as in English; instead it
focuses on the duration after th e terminal point of a situation, and has the
perfect
and
resul tat ive me aning.
The
Chinese perfective le does
no t
necessarily yield th e meaning o f completion wi th telic verbs (see Chapter
5 for details). These variations are not rando m. Typological research
(Dahl
1985;
Bybee,
Perkins, and Pagliu ca 1994) has sho w n that
some
of
these tendencies reflect common patterns of grammaticization. For
example, i t has been suggested that the reason ma ny languages do not
have perfective aspect
fo r present is
that
th e
most natural
way of talking
about situations existing
at
speech time
is
imperfective (state, progressive,
or
habi tual)
and not
perfective, because perfective indicates something
has
been completed or terminated. This pattern indicates the importance
of
funct ional motivat ion
in
shaping systems
o f
grammatical aspect
in
natural language.
Second, grammatical aspect markers
in
different languages also vary
in their degree
of
grammaticization, which
is in
turn reflected
in
their
different combinatorial patterns with lexical aspect. As noted earlier, it
has
been suggested that progressive markers grammaticize into general
imperfective markers (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994: 140-149 . In
English,
th e
progressive aspect
is
highly grammaticized.
In
addition
to its
unmarked progressive meaning (i.e., action in progress), it can also be
used for stative progressive, prelimin ary stages, habitu al, and fu tura te .
Progressive markers in other lan gu ages m ay be less gramm aticized, and
practically limited
to the
typical action-in-progress meaning,
for exam-
ple, in Chinese, Malay, and Thai. Thus, in these languages, progressive
mark ers cann ot be used for other occ asions (e.g., with states or achieve-
ments). Similarly, perfective aspect is also sensitive to the
degree
of
grammaticization in its
interaction with lexical aspect.
As
discussed
above, perfective aspect
is
either incompatible
wi th
stative verbs,
or has an
inchoat ive meaning with some stative verbs.
A s
perfective aspect gram-
maticizes, however, it can be used as past tense marker, that is, to
describe
a
state that existed
in the
past (e.g.,
The book was there yesterday; see
Bybee, Perkins,
and
Pagliuca 1994: 92).
For
example,
th e
English past
tense is aspec tually perfective (Smith 1997), signaling com pletion or
termination with dynamic verbs or inception with some stative verbs (e.g.,
Then I knew // ). But as a highly grammaticized form in the func t ion of
simple
past tense,
it can
also
be freely
applied
to
stative verbs
to
locate
states
in the
past time.
The
Japanese past tense marker ta
has a
similar
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Lexical and grammatical aspect 25
property, and is considered to be in a gramm aticization t ransi t ion fr om
perfect to perfective and furth er to simple past (Horie 1997).
Finally,
a
theoretically imp ortant variation concerns that
of
lexical
aspect. As we hav e discussed, some lang uage s (e.g., En glish) accept
imperfective/progressive with achievement verbs
to
focus
on
p re l i m i n a ry
stages of an event (e.g.,
He is reaching the summ it
whereas others
(e.g.,
Chinese and Japanese) do not. On the basis of this observation, Smith
(1997) suggested that achieveme nts in Chinese do n ot inc lude prelim i-
nary
stages
of an
event, whereas those
in
Engl ish
do. An
alternative
interpretation of this phen om enon is that the Chinese progressive m ar k-
ers zai or the
Japanese marker
-te i-
simply cannot focus
on
p r e l im i n a r y
stages of an event . In other words, it is not the lexical aspect of the verb
that
does
not include preliminary stages, but the grammatical aspect
marker that cannot denote such stages (Shirai
1998a).
This interpretat ion
attributes
the
difference between Engl ish
and
Chinese
to
variat ion
in
grammatical aspect, not in lexical aspect. O f course, this issue - wh e t h e r
th e different ial behavior of progressives in different languages is due to
grammatical aspect or lexical aspect needs further empirical invest iga-
t ion.
2.4. A time relational analysis of
aspect
Most l inguistic analyses, including ours, have adopted
the
def ini t ion
of
grammatical aspect given in
Comrie (1976).
That is , gram ma tical aspect
involves di fferent ways
of v iewing th e
temporal contour
of a
s i tua-
tion: perfective aspect presents
an
external view
of the
situation
as a
single whole in its entirety without reference to its internal s t ructure, and
imperfective
aspect
an
internal view
of the
inner const i tuency
of the
situation without regard for the situation's init ial or final b o u n d ar i e s .
Smith (1983) treats this definit ion
of
aspect
as
v iewpoin t
aspect , in
contrast
to
si tuat ion
aspect
(see 2.3). Much
th e
same
def ini t ion of
aspect has been used in research by other l ingu ists (e.g.,
D ah l
1985;
Bybee 1985; Bybee, Perkins,
and
Pagliuca 1994).
This approach to aspect has been challenged recently by Klein (1994 ,
1995,
in
press). According
to
Klein,
th e
def in i t ion
of
aspect
as
d i f f e ren t
ways of v iewing a situation is entirely metaphorical , and thus vague: what
does it
mean exactly
to
view
a
s i tua t ion
in its
entirety,
or as a
s ing le
whole,
or
with
or
witho ut reference
to its
in terna l cons t i tuency?
For
example, the difference between
John stood on h is toes
and
John was
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26 Aspect
standing
on his
toes is
characterized
as
that between
th e
perfective
and
th e
imperfective,
yet it is difficult to
grasp
th e
metaphorical differen ces
of
entirety, wholeness,
or
reference
to
internal structure
in
these
in -
stances. In view of this problem , Kl ein proposed that aspect should be
examined on a par with tense, strictly in terms of temporal relations, such
as prior to
(>), contained in (c),
or
posterior
to
(<), between
the
time intervals that
are
described
by
aspectual markers.
In
particular,
Klein argued that three types
of
time intervals
are
involved
in
this time-
relational theory of analysis and aspect:
TU:
t ime
of
utterance, i.e.,
the
time
at
which
an
utterance
is
produced;
T-SIT:
time of situation, i.e., the time at w hich the situation described by
th e
utterance obtains;
TT: topic time, i.e., the time span abou t wh ich something is said or for
which
an
assertion
is
made.
For exam ple, for the sentence
John was
writing
a letter
TU is the time
at
which
th e
speaker produces
th e
sentence,
T-SIT is the
time
at
which
the
situ ation of Joh n's writing a letter obtains, and TT is the time span
about w h ich the speaker makes an assertion. In this sentence, all that is
claimed
is
that there
was
some time span within which John
was
per-
forming
th e
action
of
writing
a
letter; whether John completed
th e
letter-
writing action
is left
open. Thus,
the
tense function
of the
sentence
is
represented by TT < TU (topic time preceding time of utterance), while
the aspect function is represented by TT c
T-SIT
(topic time contained
in time
of
situation).
16
In
other w ords, tense
is
concerned with
the
tempo-
ra l
relations between
TT and TU,
while aspect
is
concerned with
the
temporal relations between TT and T-SIT. In this analysis, the same
kinds of temporal relations (<, >, c) operate on both tense and aspect.
This analysis thus eliminates
th e
vagu eness associated w ith traditio nal
metaphorical interpretations of aspect in terms of ways of viewing a
situation. The
follow ing diagram shows
how the
major tense
and
aspect
categories
are
represented
in
this fram ew ork (see Kle in 1994, 1995 fo r
a
detailed analysis):
TENSE: Past TT < TU
Present TT D TU
Future TT > TU
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Time relational analysis 21
ASPECT:
Imperfective
TT
T-SIT
Perfective TT
T-SIT
What does this time-relational analysis have to say about the acquisi-
tion of
aspect?
Although currently no studies have used this framework
to
directly examine
th e
acquisition
of
tense
an d
aspect,
one can
imagine
that
a
whole
new set of
interesting empirical questions would arise from
the standpoint of this perspective. For example, which temporal relations
are entertained by children at which time? When and how do children
separate TU from
T-SIT,
TU
from
TT, and
T-SIT
from TT?
What
underlies children's development in their understanding of the various
relations between th e three temporal intervals, fo r tense and
aspect,
respectively? What language-universal and language-specific patterns do
children display in the acquisition of these temporal relations?
7
While there
is a
great deal
of
theoretical motivation
an d
empir ical
evidence for the time-relational analysis of tense and aspect, and answe rs
to the above questions are important in addressing developmental and
crosslinguistic issues, our analysis of aspect in this book rem ains t rad i-
tional, for several reasons. First, our original language acquisition studies
were conducted
within
the framework of a viewpoint aspect type of
linguistic analysis. Since the kinds of research questions in the time-
relational framework
are
very
different,
it
would
be
difficult
to
test these
question s with our existing data. Second, im portan t to our study is the
relationship between grammatical aspect and lexical aspect in adult as
well as child language, as discussed throughout this chapter. It is not yet
entirely clear how the time-relational analysis of aspect captures the
intricate relationships between lexical and grammatical aspect (see Klein,
Li, and Hendriks, in press, for an attempt to
study
this issue in Chinese).
Finally, since almost all previous studies hav e exam ined the acq uisi tion
of
aspect on the basis of the traditional definition of aspect, it would be
imp ortant as well as conv enient for us to evaluate and com pare our
studies against previous
findings on the
same theoretical
an d
empir ica l
bases, using the same termino logies. Nevertheless, researchers in lan -
guage acquisition will find the time-relational analysis of aspect relevant
an d
useful,
as such new linguistic analyses could have considerable
significance
fo r
reconceptualizing issues
of
acq uisi tion.
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28 spect
2.5.
ummary
In th is
chapter, we hav e provided an int roduct io n to theories of aspect by
discuss ing
two kinds of aspect, grammatical and lexical, with respect
par t icular ly to l inguis t ic an d
typological considera t ions.
W e
examined
Comrie s
c lassic definit ion of perfective and imperfective aspect,
V e n d le r s
four c ategories of lexical aspect (activities, states, acc om plish -
ments, an d achievements) , an d Sm ith s two-componen t theory of aspect
( the s i tuat ion type and the v iewpoint aspect). W e also presented K lein s
approach
to
aspect
in
terms
of
tempo ral relat ions, wh ich challeng es
classic
defini t ions of aspect.
In
this chapter, we have placed a strong emp hasis on the intera ction
between grammatical aspect and lexical aspect in the interpretat ion of the
sentence s aspectual meaning .
W e
looked
at the
combinatorial propert ies
of given aspectual markers with given types of verbs, and the differen t
implicat ions
tha t a given grammatical aspect conveys when i t combines
with verbs of different lexical aspect. As is the case with most studies in
language acquisi t ion, a c lear l inguist ic analysis of a part icular domain
serves as a
good
s tart ing
poin t
for understanding the acquisi t ion of tha t
domain. Thus, we have la id the basis here for the s tudy of the acquisi t ion
of aspect.
Grammatical aspect, lexical aspect,
and the
interaction between
the two
have important theoret ical implicat ions for language acquisi t ion. As we
will see in later chapters, in both child language and adult
second
lan-
guage learning, there
is a
c lear interaction between gramm atical aspect
and lexical aspect in the acqu isi t ion of tense-aspect m orphology, and this
interaction occurs across diverse languages. Moreover, a s we have
stressed
in
this chapter, aspect stands
at the
interface between lexicon
an d
mo rpholog y, and th us aspect not only emerges as a gramm atical task for
learners,
but
also serves
as a
ca ta lyst
for
the i r acquisi t ion
of the
lexicon.
For example, th e morphological marking of
aspect
is a dist inct feature of
verbs and not nouns or other grammatical categories of the sentence.
Chi ldren
may use
aspect markers
as a
means
to
he lp them di s t ingui sh
verbs
from
n o u n s ,
in
w hic h case aspect serves
as a
k ind
of
syntact ic
bootst rapping device.
18
To ful ly un dersta nd the relat ionships between
grammatical aspect and lexical aspect, not only descriptively for the
language, but also developmental ly for the language learner, we now turn
to the acquisi t ion of aspect.