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The notions of subject matter and aboutness have been objects of considerable attention among philosophers over the last few years. Current theories of subject matter take sentences to be the primary bearers of subject matter: "sentences have aboutness properties if anything has" (Yablo, Aboutness, Princeton University Press, 2014). However, some subsentential expressions can also be thought of as being about something. Moreover, it appears that the subject matters of sentences depend in a systematic way on the aboutness properties of their subsentential components. In this paper, we focus on the question of what predicates are about. We provide an account of predicative subject matter in which subject matters are assigned to predicates in a natural way, and which can be smoothly integrated with some existing accounts of sentential subject matter. We also argue that the notion of predicative subject matter is a worthy object of study, both within the current debate on subject matter and in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspect, the perfective-imperfective contrast, is a universal phenomenon, part of man's cognitive organization to reflect objective/subjective reality by conceptualizing referents of verbs and of nominals/NPs standing for participants in situations as temporal entities, residing in speaker-hearers' heads and interacting between each other. Aspect is instantiated across languages through two archetypes: verbal aspect (VA) - grammatical, as in the Slavic languages, including Ukrainian; compositional aspect (CA) - complex semantico-syntactic, sporadically dependent on pragmatic discourse elements, as in English. The paper explores Ukrainian language data to, first, confirm that CA, realized mainly as a very complex interplay of sentence components, exists not only in CA languages but, albeit peripherally, also in VA languages, including Ukrainian. Second, to find out how Ukrainian aspect is realized in sentences with biaspectual verbs and particular numbers of situation-participant NPs: three, two, one. The referents of verbs and of nominals/NPs standing for participants in situations in both VA and CA languages are part of the never-ending process of thinking and perpetual resorting to memory and is not some abstract self-contained system of symbols divorced from human cognition. Phrased otherwise, aspect, especially CA, cannot be understood within the domain of traditional grammar and mainstream linguistics with their naivist notions ignoring man's cognitive capacity and maintaining, inter alia, that nominals/NPs are concrete/physical or abstract entities. The study of matter is ordained to physics. Linguistics is obliged to investigate not the material world but how language reflects this world and other possible (imaginable) worlds. A simple analogue is a woman in a mirror: it is not a material object but an image of a woman; likewise, a woman referred to through language is not a material object but a token of a woman. Hence, NP referents of material things are not physical entities but images of such entities, fully describable, and their kineticism is handled by verb referents, whereby the intricate CA mechanism, which is cognitive, can be observed, albeit peripherally, also in VA languages, including Ukrainian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a literary corpus study of four grammatical tenses across four European languages. The corpus consists of a selection of eight chapters from Javier Marías's Spanish novel Así empieza lo malo 'Thus bad begins', and its translations to English, Dutch, and French. We annotated 1579 verb forms in the Spanish source text for tense, and, subsequently, their translations in the other languages, distinguishing between two registers within the novel, i.e., dialogue and narration. We found that the vast majority of the Spanish tenses are translated one-to-one to their counterparts in the three languages, especially in narration. In dialogue, we found several deviations, which we could partially account for within an Optimality Theoretic approach by appealing to the notion of markedness along two different typological dimensions, namely, tense (present versus past) and aspect (imperfective versus perfective). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparison of emerging signed languages and creole languages provides evidence that, when language is emerging, it prioritizes marking the novelty of information; is readily recursive; favors the manner of action (aspect) over the time of action (tense); develops inflection readily only in a visual, as opposed to aural, mode; and develops derivational opacity only as the result of drift over long periods of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Methodical Perspectives / Metodički Vidici is the property of Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses writing tips that feature verb tenses, aspects, and conditional sentences. Topics explored include the use of various tenses to orient readers about the time when the action happened, the differences between simple, continuous, and perfect aspects of a verb, and the use of conditional statements to describe possibilities or imaginary actions.

This paper examines Hausa verbal compounds in terms of the division of regular verbs (verbs in the "grade system") into verbs which have a High or Low tone first syllable. The focus of the paper is the surprisingly small number of transitive L-verbs (verbs beginning with a Low tone - "grade 2") and their limited use of compound markers which contrasts strongly with the frequency of transitive H-verbs (verbs beginning with a High tone) and their markers. I also describe several devices (e.g. grade-switching and covert subjects) which "allow" the formation of verbal compounds with transitive L-verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cross-linguistic typology of performatives, especially with respect to their relationship with tense and aspect, in the languages of the world. I explore the relationship between performatives and particular tenses and aspects, and touch on the mechanisms underlying such a relationship. The paper finds that there is not one relation between performatives and a particular tense and aspect and there are no languages which have a special (dedicated) performative tense or aspect marker. Instead, performatives are compatible with various tense and aspect markers, even though the use of a present tense seems to be the most common. What counts as the most optimal tense and aspect for performatives depends on the division of labor within the linguistic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on a two aspectual morphemes in Moksha Mordvin (

This article is concerned with some features of the tempo-aspectual system of Shumcho, a small West Himalayish (Tibeto-Burman) language spoken in a few villages in the district Kinnaur (State of Himachal Pradesh) in the Indian Himalayas, and provides a descriptive account of the language's strategies to express progressive or habitual action and the effects of the respective markers with various types of predicates. I also consider the semantic (evidential) properties of the copulas and their interaction with the aspect/tense system, and offer some thoughts on the historical development of imperfective and perfective constructions as met in the present-day language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our knowledge about tense, aspect and modality (TMA) in the Oceanic languages of Melanesia has so far been severely limited by the lack of available data. Habituality in particular, as one of the less described TMA categories, has not yet been widely discussed for this group of languages. Based on corpus data and elicitations, we give a detailed overview of four languages, identifying common trends and addressing specific questions of general concern. These include the relation of habituality to (im)perfectivity and the relation between habituality and irrealis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this introduction article is to give a general overview of how habituality has been investigated in the literature as a grammatical category. In doing so, we first elaborate on the question of how habituality can be characterized and what difficulties one encounters in determining its properties, which include non-contingent modal event recurrence. A brief discussion of these issues is given in Section 2. Section 3 outlines selected (conceptual and formal) connections between habituality and other grammatical categories. What our observations essentially indicate is that habituality, on the one hand, closely interacts with several TAM categories, most prominently imperfective aspect and its derivatives (progressive, continuative), and also interacts in special ways with modal categories, such as the evidential or the future, on the other hand, we also observe – as has been done previously – that habituality is often not encoded overtly and can be expressed by several forms within one and the same language, and if overtly marked by a dedicated form, diachronically, it is not always stable. Finally, Section 4 summarizes the most relevant findings of the articles collected in the present special issue and highlights their importance for the general discussion about habituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The impact of second language (L2) on first language (L1), known as L2 transfer, has been suggested as a fundamental driving force of L1 attrition. The goal of this study was to test the differential attrition of verb aspect and tense in L1 (Russian) under the influence of L2 (German) grammatical properties. We also investigated whether the age of bilingualism onset and the amount of exposure to L1 modulate this L2 transfer effect. Methodology: We tested sentence processing in 30 adult Russian monolingual participants and 30 L1 attritors - Russian-German bilingual speakers - with early versus late bilingualism onset and with low versus high amounts of exposure to L1. Participants heard grammatically correct sentences, sentences with aspect violations and sentences with tense violations, and were asked to detect errors. Data and Analysis: The accuracy of participants' responses was analysed using generalized linear mixed-effects modelling in R. Findings: The L2 transfer effect was found, but was strongly modulated by the amount of L1 exposure: only bilinguals with little exposure to L1 showed greater attrition of L1 aspect compared to L1 tense. Moreover, the age of bilingualism onset proved to be more critical than the L2 transfer effect: an earlier bilingualism onset resulted in greater attrition of both aspect and tense in L1. Originality: The study provided new evidence about the differential impact of the grammatical similarity between L1 and L2, the age of bilingualism onset and the amount of L1 exposure on aspect and tense processing in L1 attritors. Implications: Our findings suggest that greater L1 use after immigration helps bilingual speakers to be less susceptible to L2 transfer and prevents attrition of L1-specific grammatical categories. Also, a general decline in processing verbal morphology is more likely to occur in speakers with an early rather than a late onset of bilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the distributional patterns of verb form frequencies in the Spanish past tense (the Preterit and the Imperfect) in the Corpus del Español (Davies, 2002). Following a usage-based approach, we examine the potential influence of input frequency as a driving factor in L2 learning. Results provide support for the existence of a distributional bias in L1 Spanish, with several telic predicates more often occurring in the Preterit and several atelic predicates in the Imperfect. Results also demonstrate that the distribution of verbs in the Preterit and the Imperfect is Zipfian, with the most frequent verbs overall accounting for the majority of all the tokens. Finally, an analysis of the different meanings of the Imperfect demonstrates clear differences in frequency of use with the continuous meaning as the most frequently expressed meaning, followed by habituality and progressivity. Implications for research and teaching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multifactorial analysis of progressive marking contrasts native English to two Asian Englishes and Dutch English. Specifically, we (i) model writers’ constructional choices (progressive vs. non-progressive) across Englishes based on several linguistic predictors simultaneously, (ii) assess how those factors impact the progressive vs. non-progressive alternation, (iii) how several linguistic factors determine, simultaneously, writers’ constructional choices and (iv) how those choices differ across varieties and genres. Based on 4,661 verb constructions from five comparable multi-genre corpora, we ran a logistic regression analysis to determine which factors cause English-speaking populations to differ in their constructional choices and in which specific contexts. While the model strongly predicts speakers’ choices, within individual genres, tense and modality are found to influence speakers’ choices differently. Overall, our results yield nuanced insights into the (dis)similarities among and within ESL/EFL varieties and contribute to the broader issue of the native-foreign-second language continuum across genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of tense and aspect (TA) in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). It determines how learners create temporal reference using TA systems in complex languages. It provides evidence that researchers continue to assess the use and acquisition of TA both from a concept- and form-oriented perspective and developmental stages of encoding temporality.

A compositional analysis is provided of temporal perspective and orientation (Condoravdi 2002) of modals in Dutch, English, Gitksan (Tsimshianic), and St'át'imcets (Lillooet Salish). Modals interact freely with the tense-aspect architecture in each language. Temporal perspective is determined by an operator scoping over the modal, usually tense, while temporal orientation is determined by aspectual operators below it (and further restricted by the diversity condition). In contrast to much of the literature, it is argued that epistemic modals can scope under past tense. Modal-temporal interactions behave in predictable ways in Dutch, Gitksan, and St'át'imcets, whereas the English system is more idiosyncratic and partly lexicalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at analyzing verbal suffixes in Sadri with special focus on tense and aspect inflections. The Sadri past tense and the future tense are marked by morphemes /-l-/ and /-b-/ respectively. But, there are some exceptions found in imperfective and perfective aspects in the past tense which are marked with or without the past tense marker /-l-/. The future tense marker /- b-/ is absent in the third person singular in all aspects. Likewise, the perfective aspect morpheme in Sadri is /-y ~ -i-/. The perfective aspect morpheme /-y/ gets attached to the vowel ending verbs and /-i-/ get inserted in the consonant ending verbs. The Sadri imperfective is marked by morpheme /-at ~ -t /. The morpheme / -t / is attached to the vowel ending and /-at / to the consonant ending verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the existence of translation universals by investigating the use of aspect in modal contexts in translated and non-translated legal Polish and by analysing the observed differences with reference to insights from cognitive linguistics. Corpus analysis highlights significant distributional differences in the use of the two aspectual forms of Polish verbs (imperfective and perfective) in modal contexts. I argue that cognitive mechanisms called 'chunking' (Langacker 1988; Bybee 2006) and 'entrenchment' (Bybee 2010) underlie these differences. I show that what may at first glance seem as behaviour unique to the translation process, is in fact caused by general cognitive processes. The study has implications for both translation studies and cognitive linguistics: it offers support for the basic assumptions about the usage-based nature of linguistic knowledge and highlights the importance of taking these assumptions into consideration when investigating the translation process and translation universals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 8 of the book “Grounding in Chinese Written Narrative Discourse" by Wendan Li is presented. It examines the issue of coercion here mainly concerns action verbs followed by the perfective marker -le, although the analysis can apply to other situations. It explores different interpretations of V-le and propose an account along the lines of recent developments in aspectual coercion.

Chapter 6 of the book “Grounding in Chinese Written Narrative Discourse" by Wendan Li is presented. It examines two types of complex predicates with juxtaposed Verbal Phrases, serial verb constructions (SVCs) and clauses with multiple aspectually marked VPs. This analysis focuses on predicates with two VPs that record actual, past events, although clauses with more VPs will be discussed from time to time for illustration purposes.

Kiswahili has been presumed to be an SVO language by many scholars (Polome, 1967; Myachina, 1981; Vitale, 1981; Habwe & Karanja, 2004; Jerono 2012, etc.). However, a closer analysis of the Kiswahili clause tends to discount this widely held view. What are normally referred to as subjects and objects in Kiswahili are not subjects and objects per se but they may have other functions. The real subjects and objects in Kiswahili are the incorporated subjects and incorporated objects. This paper uses clause chaining to argue for the basic word order in Kiswahili as being V(O) and not SVO. Clause chaining is the process of linking together many clauses in which it is only the main (independent) clause that is inflected for tense, aspect and mood (TAM) while all the other (i.e. dependent) clauses lack these inflections. The dependent clauses cannot stand on their own but the main (independent) clauses can. The dependent clauses rely on the independent clauses for their tense or aspect and mood markers and hence the term used to refer to them, i.e. dependent clauses. The main clause, which controls the dependent clauses is normally referred to as the controlling clause. Clause chaining, a feature which is traditionally associated with SOV languages, is also found in Kiswahili clauses, a language usually referred to as an SVO language. In this paper, clause chaining, a pragmatic principle, is used to argue for pragmatic word order in Kiswahili as well as to illustrate that Kiswahili is not an SVO language but rather it is a V(O) language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Domínios de Lingu@gem is the property of Dominios de Lingu@gem and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, the interplay of modal markers with the lexical aspect of the verb in Han period Chinese is at issue. Abraham and Leiss (Modality-aspect interfaces: Implications and typological solutions, 2008) propose a strong and possibly universal relation between the verbal aspect and either the root/deontic or the epistemic reading of a modal verb based on data from the Germanic languages. In this article, this hypothesis will be checked against the data of Late Archaic and Early Middle (Han period) Chinese. It will be proposed that a relation similar to that in the Germanic languages can also be established for Chinese at least for the root modal values, despite the obvious differences between the aspectual and modal system of Chinese and that of the Germanic languages. As in the Germanic languages, root modal verbs in general select verbs/predicates which are compatible with the perfective aspect, i.e. [+TELIC] verbs. Due to the fact that epistemic readings have not developed yet for modal auxiliary verbs, the constraints proposed in Abraham and Leiss for the epistemic reading of modal verbs in combination with imperfective or [−TELIC] verbs cannot be confirmed for LAC and EMC. Epistemic modality is expressed by sentential adverbs which take an entire proposition as their complement. These are less confined in their selectional restrictions than modal auxiliary verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of suppletion phenomena in Zapotec. As established by previous cross-linguistic studies of suppletion, most suppletion phenomena in Zapotec occur in the verb system. Nominal suppletion is attested in the possessed forms of selected nouns, such as tortilla, clothing, house, and pueblo, and the numeral system includes suppletive forms of the numeral first. Verbal suppletion types include suppletion based on aspect, mood, person/number of the subject, person of the oblique object, and valence. Each category of nominal and verbal suppletion is represented by a small number of strongly suppletive forms that appear to be etymologically distinct and a larger number of weakly suppletive forms that appear to derive from morphological processes that have ceased to be productive. By documenting suppletion phenomena across the Zapotec family, the present study aims to contribute both to the comparative Zapotec linguistics and to the empirical basis of the typological and theoretical investigation of suppletion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Euphemism is a common linguistic phenomenon. A short introduction to euphemism in English and Chinese will benefit our future intercultural communication. Three grammatical approaches in English euphemism were analyzed in light of cognitive grammar: negation, postmodification and aspect. Thanks to negation, profile and base are changed, resulting in the prominence of "NOT" and the shift of cognitive reference point. Postmodification makes the head noun the trajector in a relational profile, hence reducing the prominence of the modifier. Aspects help to turn a bounded scene into an unbounded one and hence change the cognitive focus. These will be benefit for human's communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under a generative framework, this paper investigates the properties of the AVonly restriction on complementation and how it comes about across many Formosan languages. It is found that the AV-only complements occur as a nonfinite defective vP without any formal feature and that they are tenselss and subjectless--temporal markers must attach to the matrix verb; the embedded object, if any, is required to move to the matrix subject position to get case. The AV-only restriction is attested not only in restructuring constructions but also in non-restructuring ones. In both types, the matrix verbs are highly restricted: in the first type, the matrix verb is restricted to a restructuring verb and in the second type, the matrix verb is limited to a verb that projects an external argument. In restructuring contexts, the matrix external argument, if there is one, is inert and creates no intervention effects for the shifted embedded object; in non-restructuring contexts, the matrix external argument blocks the raising of the embedded object, thereby preventing the embedded verb from occurring in the non-AV transitive form. The AV-only restriction is due to multiple factors, most important of which is a locality condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss some arguments presented in the previous research against the deletion-based account (i.e., the Reduction Analysis) of the Mandarin bǐ- comparative, which include the lack of the subcomparative, the lack of the embedded standard, and the distribution of the quantificational adverb dōu in this construction. Working with an Agree-based theory of selection and a featural account of PF-deletion, I show that a deletion-based account does capture these facts. The proposal is built on the assumptions that i) deletion may rescue some illegitimate representations caused by uninterpretable features at PF (Wurmbrand 2014; see also Merchant 2009; Bošković 2011; and others) and ii) the bǐ-constituent contains a small clause (i.e., vP) and lacks all the higher functional clausal heads (e.g., T, Asp, Mod, etc.) (cf. Pancheva 2006). 2006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of pluractionality is less common in Bantu languages than in other language families, such as Chadic (Afro-Asiatic) and various Nilo-Saharan languages. Yet many Bantu languages reveal patterns of habituals, combinations of verbal extensions and reduplication patterns that can function in pluractional-like ways in order to mark 'plurality or multiplicity of the verb's action' (Nurse 2008, Tense and aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 314). Bunia Swahili, an un(der)documented variety of Swahili spoken in Eastern DR Congo, has undergone contact-induced change that can be traced back to Central Sudanic languages, and has developed fluid registers of socially motivated realization. It contains different habitual markers expressing deviating semantic concepts, while habitual markers can also be combined in order to express evidentiality. Reduplication patterns as markers for pluractionality and their co-occurrence with habituals as gradual semantic continua are both taken into account in this preliminary overview. It is therefore proposed that 'semantic aspect' plays a predominant role in pluractional constructions in Bunia Swahili. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the process of lexical development by Japanese learners of English in instructional settings. A test was designed to measure their inter-lexical competence (i.e. the ability to use semantically related words differently) about the English basic verbs of sensory perception (e.g. see, listen, smell), which constitutes a conceptual lexical network. Three hundred nineteen university students of different levels of English proficiency participated in this study. The overall results showed that Japanese university students had difficulty in the selective use of basic verbs of perception, and we identified some specific problematic areas. The performance of the participants was discussed in terms of a learning strategy - i.e. the search-translation-equivalent strategy. Pedagogical implications were discussed with reference to core schemas and lexical networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, including Turkish, Bulgarian or Norwegian, present perfect morphology is ambiguous between an aspectual interpretation and the expression of indirect evidentiality, more in particular inference or hearsay ( Izvorski, 1997 ). In languages such as Washo (Hokan) or Hare (Athapaskan), morphemes that express indirect evidentiality can also be used to express mirativity ( DeLancey, 2001; Aikhenvald, 2004, 2012 ). In Turkish, the present perfect can express all three semantic interpretations: present perfect (PPA), indirect evidentiality (IE), and mirativity (MIR). The question therefore arises what common element links these three interpretations and the particular pairings observed (PPA-IE, IE-MIR, PPA-IE-MIR). Previous accounts such as Bybee and Dahl (1989) and Izvorski (1997) only account for a single link in the triad: PPA-IE. We propose that a proper account of the relations between PPA, IE, and MIR requires that mirativity be redefined in terms of ‘sudden discovery or realisation’ ( Adelaar, 1977, 2013; Mexas, 2016 ). This redefinition allows us to explain the link between PPA, IE, and MIR in terms of the temporal nature of the traditional aspectual classes: states, processes, accomplishments, and achievements ( Vendler, 1967; Mourelatos, 1981 ). Indirect evidentiality can then be viewed as the evidential counterpart of an accomplishment in the aspectual sense, while the category of mirativity should be viewed as the mirror image of achievements. We will propose a formal semantic analysis that can capture this insight and account for the specific pairings observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The verb ἕχω has two future formations, ἕξω and σχήσω. Opinion is divided, however, as to whether there is any semantic difference between them. In the view of some, ἕξω shows imperfective aspect ('will have, keep'), σχήσω perfective aspect ('will hold back, prevent'). Others deny that any such aspectual distinction can be drawn, pointing to passages where the supposedly aoristic σχήσω is clearly durative. Examination of the evidence from seven authors reveals that, despite the decline of the (-)σχησ- future, the two forms are nearly always used in distinct ways, which can often be characterized as aspectual. First, the (-)σχησ- future is used more often of telic events. Second, it is preferred when the verb has the meaning 'prevent', especially when it has a prepositional prefix; as this sense shows higher transitivity than the 'have' semantics of the (-)έξ- future, it is reasonable to associate it with the perfective aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Chinese as a Second Language Research is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Verbal systems can give prominence to tense, aspect, or mood. The morphology of the verbal system within biblical Greek provides important evidence to suggest that Greek is an aspect-prominent language, though one that also incorporates tense within the indicative mood. Certain traditional grammatical labels inappropriately treat Greek as though it were instead a tense-prominent language like English (e.g. the use of "present" or "tense formative" outside of the indicative mood). We need to reform our descriptive labels and general conception of Greek accordingly. In doing so, the simplicity and beauty of the Greek verbal system emerges, offering pedagogical advantages for teachers of Greek and challenging exegetes to properly account for Greek's particular configuration of tense, aspect, and mood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide an analysis of the function of Polish verbal prefixes and German verbal particles in aspectual composition of incremental theme predicates (ITP) such as eat and drink. Incremental theme verbs (e.g. eat, drink) are well known for the fact that the referential properties of the incremental theme arguments (ITA) affect the telicity of the whole predication. In the Slavic languages, only prefixed incremental theme verbs result in a telic predication. Since in many cases prefixed verbs are perfective, it is often assumed that telicity results from perfectivity. We argue that grammatical aspect is not necessary for achieving a telic ITP, since there are perfective ITPs that do not result in a telic predication. Rather (a)telicity is dependent on the semantic content of the verbal prefix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent prominence of verbal aspect theory has played an important role in helping NT exegetes more accurately interpret the use and meaning of verbs. In seeking to correct the abuses of the past, however, modern interpreters who embrace verbal aspect theory are also often guilty of placing too much interpretive weight on the tense-form of verbs, often describing them as being "marked." Focusing on imperatives, this essay demonstrates that verbs that are often highlighted as being emphasized by some scholars are simply the normal, expected form of that verb. In other words, sometimes an author does not make a subjective choice to portray an action in a certain way but submits to convention and uses the normal or expected form which is often influenced by a particular verb's inherent lexical meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Chinese Linguistics is the property of Chinese University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Language: Meaning & Form / Valoda: Nozīme un Forma is the property of University of Latvia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Opportunistic perception verbs ('see', 'hear', as opposed to explorative perception verbs, 'look', 'listen') express the opportunity for perception and are condition- oriented (exposure, i.e. the perceiver's exposure to a percept), not participant- oriented, in their aspectual structure. The Baltic languages, as other languages in Central, East, and Northern Europe, have specific perception verbs, which are a subtype of opportunistic perception verbs, for the expression of restricted exposure. The lexical character of specificity in Baltic--unlike Russian where it is integrated into a rigid grammatical aspect system--is more favorable for uncovering the underlying semantic factors of specificity, which differ across perceptual systems. Restrictedness of exposure is a scale rather than a dichotomy, and cross-linguistic comparison in parallel texts reveals that specificity is a scale with much variation as to where the borderline between specific and non-specific perception verbs is drawn in the languages of the area. Obscured perception verbs, which emphasize difficulty in discrimination, are another set of condition-oriented perception verbs in Baltic and Russian and are closely related to specific verbs synchronically and diachronically. This paper describes non-specific, specific, and obscured perception verbs in the Baltic languages and attempts to capture their variability within six dimensions (morphology, area, diachrony, specificity, modality, obscured verbs). A pre-condition for this endeavor is a critique of earlier approaches to the semantics of perception verbs. Nine major biases are identified (nominalism, physiology, discrete features, vision, paradigmatic modelling, aspectual event types, dual nature models, participant orientation, and viewing activity as control). In developing an alternative, the approach greatly profits from Gibson's ecological psychology and Rock's theory of indirect perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although cross-linguistic research on second language tense-aspect acquisition has uncovered universal tendencies concerning the association between verbal semantics and tense-aspect markers, it is still unclear what mechanisms underlie this link. This study investigates the acquisition of two imperfective aspect markers (- ko iss- and - a iss-) in Korean by Japanese learners to determine how cognitive universals, first language (L1) transfer, and input frequency interact. The current findings are compared with the results of Lee and Kim (2007), who studied the acquisition of the same aspect markers by L1 English learners. Both groups of learners acquired the progressive - ko iss- earlier than the resultative - a iss-/- ko iss-, while L1 Japanese learners acquired the resultative use of - ko iss- earlier than L1 English learners. Japanese learners' early acquisition of the resultative - ko iss- is likely due to L1 transfer, because Japanese has a similar imperfective marker (- te i-). We argue that cognitive universals (one-to-one principle), L1 transfer, and input frequency all contribute to the acquisition patterns of temporal morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The verb ἔχω has two future formations, ἕξω and σχήσω. Opinion is divided, however, as to whether there is any semantic difference between them. In the view of some, ἕξω shows imperfective aspect (‘will have, keep’), σχήσω perfective aspect (‘will hold back, prevent’). Others deny that any such aspectual distinction can be drawn, pointing to passages where the supposedly aoristic σχήσω is clearly durative. Examination of the evidence from seven authors reveals that, despite the decline of the (-)σχησ- future, the two forms are nearly always used in distinct ways, which can often be characterized as aspectual. First, the (-)σχησ- future is used more often of telic events. Second, it is preferred when the verb has the meaning ‘prevent’, especially when it has a prepositional prefix; as this sense shows higher transitivity than the ‘have’ semantics of the (-)ἑξ- future, it is reasonable to associate it with the perfective aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This short note argues that the noted difficulties in Neh 8,8a can be resolved by accepting a previously suggested emendation to MT and a renewed examination of a much discussed word solely against the background of two legal episodes that employ the same verbal stem. It is suggested that one could render Neh 8,8a as »They read from the scroll of the tôrāh of God that was (already) declared«. Zusammenfassung: Der Beitrag vertritt die These, dass die in Neh 8,8a feststellbaren Schwierigkeiten durch eine Emendation am MT und durch die erneute Betrachtung eines viel diskutierten Wortes behoben werden können. Dies geschieht vor dem Hintergrund von zwei Gesetzestexten, die denselben Verbalstamm verwenden. Es wird vorgeschlagen, man könne Neh 8,8a »Sie lasen aus der Schriftrolle der Tora Gottes, die war (schon) erklärt« lesen. Résumé: Cette note montre que les difficultés remarquées en Ne 8,8a peuvent être résolues, en acceptant un amendement du TM déjà proposé antérieurement ainsi qu'en examinant à nouveau, sur l'arrière-fond de deux épisodes juridiques qui utilisent la même racine, un mot souvent discuté. Il est ainsi possible de rendre Ne 8,8a par »ils lisaient dans le rouleau de la torah de Dieu, qui avait été (déjà) proclamée«. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes TAM marking in the nominal domain in Chorote (Mataguayo or Matacoan; Argentina and Paraguay). In this language, some of the verbal TAM markers also occur in the nominal domain, and at least three of them can have scope over only the nominal but not over the predicate of the clause: the distant past pe(j), the irrealis -a and the conjectural (epistemic or evidential) -t'ey. The phenomenon is analogous to nominal TAM as described for many languages by but the difference is that Chorote markers are clitics or independent words and not nominal inflectional morphemes. Regarding the distant past marker, we argue that it codifies tense and not aspect or any other category; however, it is syntactically a modifier of the verb or the noun and not a functional category Tense like the one found in the verbal domain of European languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perfect aspect is a retrospective aspect that encodes the current relevance of a previous event. In this work, we propose a semantic and grammatical category labeled as antiperfect that, in contrast to the perfect aspect, encodes the non-validity of a previous eventuality in speech time. Given that, as the perfect aspect, the antiperfect is subject to the current relevance of a previous situation, we propose that this is a second type of retrospective aspect. After reviewing the descriptions of perfect by Comrie (1976), Dik (1997) and Nishiyama & Koenig (2010), and the description of discontinuous past by Plungian & van der Auwera (2006), we analyze how the antiperfect is grammatically encoded in Mapudungun by means of the morpheme-fu. We focus the analysis of this category on its semantic-pragmatic description, its relation to aktionsart, and the role of context in its interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on an experimental study addressing the second language acquisition of Mandarin temporality. Mandarin Chinese does not mark past, present, or future with dedicated morphemes; the native English of the learners does. It was hypothesized that, in their comprehension, learners would utilize the deictic pattern of expressing temporality, which postulates that bounded events tend to be interpreted as past and unbounded events as present. Twenty-eight bilingual native speakers, 25 intermediate learners, and 23 advanced learners of Mandarin with English as their native language took 3 different interpretation tests. Learners' temporal interpretation choices were highly accurate even at intermediate levels of proficiency, suggesting that obeying the deictic pattern in second language comprehension is not hard. Pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: The comprehension of tense/aspect morphology by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was assessed via Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL) to determine whether this population's difficulties with producing these morphemes extended to their comprehension. Method: Four-year-old participants were assessed twice, 4 months apart. They viewed a video that presented side-by-side ongoing and completed events paired with familiar verbs with past tense and progressive morphology. Their eye movements were recorded and coded offline; the IPL measures included percentage of looking time at, and latency of first look to, the matching scene. Spontaneous speech samples were also obtained and coded for number of words, past tense, and progressive inflections. Results: Relative to their baseline preferences, these 4-year-old children with ASD looked more quickly to and longer at the matching scene for both morphemes. Children who produced more words, including progressive and past morphemes, and those who performed better on standardized language assessments demonstrated better comprehension of -ing. Conclusions: Overall, these children with ASD demonstrated consistent comprehension of grammatical aspect morphology; moreover, their degree of comprehension was found to correlate with spontaneous production and standardized test scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antipassive constructions are commonly associated with languages with a predominantly ergative alignment. In this article, we show that antipassive constructions can also occur in predominantly accusative languages such as Cilubà, a Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is expressed by the verbal suffix -angan-, deriving an intransitive clause from a transitive one by omitting the object noun phrase. This suffix functions canonically as a reciprocal marker and is also used to express sociativity/reciprocity and iterativity. An analysis of the suffix' polysemy is provided on three levels: We argue that (i) plurality of relations is the underlying concept that semantically accounts for its different meanings, (ii) that its use in an antipassive clause is syntactically derived from its use as a canonical reciprocal marker by the demotion and omission of the second participant, and (iii) that the suffix is diachronically bimorphemic and originally consisted of two suffixes that still exist in Cilubà today, with the sum of its individual meanings not straightforwardly reflecting the synchronic polysemy of -angan-. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]