Tense and Aspect in Indo-European Languages
Theory, typology, diachrony
This monograph presents a general picture of the evolution of IE verbal systems within a coherent cognitive framework. The work encompasses all the language families of the IE phylum, from prehistory to present day languages.
Inspired by the ideas of Roman Jakobson and Gustave Guillaume the authors relate tense and aspect to underlying cognitive processes, and show that verbal systems have a staged development of time representations (chronogenesis). They view linguistic change as systemic and trace the evolution of the earliest tense systems by (a) aspectual split and (b) aspectual merger from the original aspectual contrasts of PIE, the evidence for such systemic change showing clearly in the paradigmatic morphology of the daughter languages.
The nineteen chapters cover first the ancient documentation, then those families whose historical data are from a more recent date. The last chapters deal with the systemic evolution of languages that are descended from ancient forbears such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and are completed by a chapter on the practical and theoretical conclusions of the work.
Inspired by the ideas of Roman Jakobson and Gustave Guillaume the authors relate tense and aspect to underlying cognitive processes, and show that verbal systems have a staged development of time representations (chronogenesis). They view linguistic change as systemic and trace the evolution of the earliest tense systems by (a) aspectual split and (b) aspectual merger from the original aspectual contrasts of PIE, the evidence for such systemic change showing clearly in the paradigmatic morphology of the daughter languages.
The nineteen chapters cover first the ancient documentation, then those families whose historical data are from a more recent date. The last chapters deal with the systemic evolution of languages that are descended from ancient forbears such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and are completed by a chapter on the practical and theoretical conclusions of the work.
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 145] 1997. xii, 403 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Authors' Preface | p. v
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List of Abbreviations | p. xi
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Chapter 1: Tense and Aspect: Description and TheoryJohn Hewson | p. 1
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Section A: Languages with the original three-aspect system: present – aorist – perfect
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Chapter 2: The Verbal System of Ancient GreekJohn Hewson | p. 24
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Chapter 3: The Verbal System of Vedic and Classical SanskritVit Bubenik | p. 46
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Section B: Languages with the original present - aorist system and innovative perfect
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Chapter 4: The Verbal System of Classical ArmenianVit Bubenik | p. 67
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Chapter 5: The Verbal System of Old Church SlavicVit Bubenik | p. 82
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Chapter 6: The Verbal System of AlbanianVit Bubenik | p. 103
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Chapter 7: The Verbal System of TocharianVit Bubenik | p. 125
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Section C: Languages with a three-tense system
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Chapter 8: Tense and Aspect in BalticJohn Hewson | p. 142
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Chapter 9: Tense and Aspect in CelticJohn Hewson | p. 165
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Chapter 10: The Latin Verbal SystemJohn Hewson | p. 189
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Section D: Languages which merged the original aorist and perfect into the preterit
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Chapter 11: The Verbal System of Germanic (Gothic, Old English)John Hewson | p. 209
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Chapter 12: The Verbal System of Anatolian (Hittite)Vit Bubenik | p. 229
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Section E: Later Developments
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Chapter 13: From Ancient to Modern GreekVit Bubenik | p. 249
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Chapter 14: Development of Modern Indic Tense-Aspect SystemVit Bubenik | p. 265
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Chapter 15: Development of Modern Slavic Tense-Aspect SystemVit Bubenik | p. 283
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Chapter 16: Development of Modern Iranian Tense-Aspect SystemVit Bubenik | p. 304
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Chapter 17: From Latin to Modern RomanceJohn Hewson | p. 314
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Chapter 18: Tense and Aspect in Modern GermanicJohn Hewson | p. 331
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Chapter 19: ConclusionsJohn Hewson and Vit Bubenik | p. 351
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Appendices | p. 365
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Indexes | p. 390
“The Scholarship displayed is impressive, and the book, with its masses of data, should serve usefully for many years both as a reference work and as a bibliographical guide.”
“[A] brilliantly detailed survey of the development of tense and verbal aspect systems in just about every branch of the Indo-European language family and over almost all of its four millenia of recorded history.”
Robert Binnick, Letters in Canada 1997
“[A] useful reference book for the older tense-aspect systems of the Indo-European languages.”
Östen Dahl, Stockholm University
“The book holds much of interest for the general Indo-Europeanist and theoretician alike, and will certainly find service as an important reference work.”
Paul J. Sidwell, Australian National University
“This is an important study, both for the conceptual framework it proposes for the analysis of tense and aspect and for the wealth of data it discusses.”
Benji Wald, University of California, Los Angeles
Cited by (28)
Cited by 28 other publications
Onufrieva, E. S.
2023. Modern Greek Constructions with Position Verb <i>κάθομαι</i>. Nauchnyi dialog 12:10 ► pp. 104 ff. 
Castillo, Concha
2022. The derivation of verbs in Old English and Middle English. Complutense Journal of English Studies 30 ► pp. 23 ff.
Castillo, Concha
2022. The Status of English Modals Prior to Their Recategorization as T and the Trigger for Their Recategorization. Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies :31/2 ► pp. 49 ff.
García Yanes, Francisco Javier
2022. El punto de vista inherente como factor clave en la elección del modo en las oraciones subordinadas temporales: los casos de antes/después (de). Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxía ► pp. 1 ff.
Fischer, Hanna
2020. Chapter 4. The development of the perfect in selected Middle and New Germanic languages. In Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 352], ► pp. 96 ff.
Kaur, Gurmeet
2020. On the syntax of addressee in imperatives: insights from allocutivity. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5:1
Keidan, Artemij, Leonid Kulikov & Nikolaos Lavidas
2020. Morphosyntactic isoglosses in Indo-European: An introduction. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 56:3 ► pp. 373 ff.
Tono, Yukio
2020. Review of Fuchs, Robert and Valentin Werner. 2019. Tense and Aspect in Second Language Acquisition and Learner Corpus Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN: 978-9-027-20715-9. https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.108. Research in Corpus Linguistics 8:2 ► pp. 176 ff.
Gvozdanovic, Jadranka
2019. Chapter 15. Early Indo-European dialects and innovations of aspect systems. In Historical Linguistics 2015 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 348], ► pp. 302 ff.
DE WIT, ASTRID, FRANK BRISARD & MICHAEL MEEUWIS
2018. The epistemic import of aspectual constructions: the case of performatives. Language and Cognition 10:2 ► pp. 234 ff.
Andrason, Alexander & Juan-Pablo Vita
2017. THE PRESENT-FUTURE IN AMORITE. Journal for Semitics 23:1
Hewson, John
2017. Dalila Ayoun: The acquisition of the present. Folia Linguistica 51:s38-s1 ► pp. 349 ff.
Nuti, Andrea
2016. A matter of perspective. In Embodiment in Latin Semantics [Studies in Language Companion Series, 174], ► pp. 15 ff.
Velupillai, Viveka
Eckhoff, Hanne Martine & Dag T.T. Haug
Rainer, Franz, Wolfgang U. Dressler, Francesco Gardani & Hans Christian Luschützky
2014. Morphology and meaning: An overview. In Morphology and Meaning [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 327], ► pp. 3 ff.
Bary, Corien
2012. The Ancient Greek tragic aorist revisited. Glotta 88:1-4 ► pp. 31 ff.
Bary, Corien
2012. The Ancient Greek tragic aorist revisited. Glotta 88:1-4 ► pp. 31 ff.
SALAKHYAN, ELENA
2012. The emergence of Eastern European English. World Englishes 31:3 ► pp. 331 ff.
Bubenik, Vit
2011. Development of Aspect and Tense in Semitic Languages: Typological Considerations. Lingua Posnaniensis 53:2 ► pp. 7 ff.
Bubenik, Vit
2024. Reconstructing the Proto-Berber Verb System in Afro-Asiatic Perspective. In The Handbook of Berber Linguistics [Springer Handbooks in Languages and Linguistics, ], ► pp. 291 ff.
Porter, Stanley E. & Andrew W. Pitts
2008. New Testament Greek Language and Linguistics in Recent Research. Currents in Biblical Research 6:2 ► pp. 214 ff.
Bynon, Theodora
2005. Evidential, raised possessor, and the historical source of the ergative construction in Indo-Iranian. Transactions of the Philological Society 103:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Estrada Fernández, Zarina
2005. The Pronominal Form ‐a as a Middle Marker in Pima Bajo. International Journal of American Linguistics 71:3 ► pp. 277 ff.
Pandžić, Zvonko
2004. Tense, mood and aspect in the first grammar of Croatian (Kašić 1604). Historiographia Linguistica 31:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
Bender, M. Lionel, Vit Bubenik, Julia S. Falk, Anthony P. Grant, Joachim Grzega, Masataka Ishikawa, Masataka Ishikawa, Alan S. Kaye, Alan S. Kaye, Johanna Laakso, Anneli Sarhimaa, Eugenio R. Luján, Victor H. Mair, Melanie Owens, Leonard Rolfe, Solomon I. Sara, Jacob J. Spa, Yuri Tambovtsev, Yuri Tambovtsev, Edward J. Vajda, Edward J. Vajda, Elly Van Gelderen, Douglas C. Walker, Xinzhang Yang & Xinzhang Yang
2002. Reviews. <i>WORD</i> 53:3 ► pp. 369 ff.
Sasse, Hans-Jürgen
2002. Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state?. Linguistic Typology 6:2
[no author supplied]
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF: Linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General