Chapter published in:
Analogy and Contrast in Language: Perspectives from Cognitive Linguistics
Edited by Karolina Krawczak, Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Marcin Grygiel
[Human Cognitive Processing 73] 2022
► pp. 115–156

Chapter 5
Contrast and analogy in aspectual distinctions of English and Polish

The case of think predicates

| Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

This chapter makes an attempt at finding contrasts and analogies in the aspectual system of Polish and English with the use of the Integrated Model of Aspect (Kokorniak 2018). The model employs categorisation and other conceptual mechanisms (Langacker 1987, 1999, 2009) in order to reveal that the two aspectual systems, as proposed by Comrie (1976: 25), belong to different levels of elaboration, which is why they have been considered incompatible. The author suggests that the level of aspectual classes should be used for the comparison to be possible (Vendler 1957; Croft 2012). In a detailed comparative qualitative analysis of think predicates, aspectual distinctions are considered in terms of stativity vs. dynamicity, (a)telicity, (un)boundedness, replicability vs. expandability and punctuality vs. durativity.

Keywords: aspectual classes, aspectual system, conceptual mechanisms, Integrated Model of Aspect
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Traditional aspectual distinctions in Polish and English
  • 3.A search for tertium comparationis : An Integrated Model of Aspect
  • 4.Finding contrast and analogy in aspectual distinctions of Polish and English: A case study of the think concept
    • 4.1Aspectual profiling of Polish ‘myśleć’ verb constructions
    • 4.2Aspectual profiling of English think verb constructions
    • 4.3Aspectual contrasts and analogies in Polish myśleć and English think constructions
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 October 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.73.05kok
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