Cover not available
Part of
Tense, Aspect, Modality, and Evidentiality: Crosslinguistic perspectives
Edited by Dalila Ayoun, Agnès Celle and Laure Lansari
[Studies in Language Companion Series 197] 2018
► pp. 281–308

Chapter 13
The different grammars of event singularisation

A cross-linguistic corpus study

| Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
This chapter is an empirical investigation into the expression of bounded single situations across four languages, based on a parallel corpus (Camus’s The Stranger and translations into English, Russian, Hungarian). Smith (1991)’s two-component theory of aspect, whereby situation aspect combines with viewpoint aspect to compute the aspectual composition of sentences, is used to highlight cross-linguistic differences. In the original, the French passé composé appears as perfective in the sense of Smith (1991) and Klein (1994) while the English simple past is aspectually ambiguous (perfective and imperfective). Russian relies on a morphosyntactic construction (prefix + bare verb) to create perfective verbs, while Hungarian has similar morphosyntactic resources, but no grammatical aspect.
Keywords: aspect, single situations, coercion, prefixation, verb classes
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.French vs. English
    • 2.1The French passé composé (PC)
    • 2.2The English simple past (SP): Neutral or shifter?
  • 3.Russian vs. Hungarian
    • 3.1The predominance of perfective verbs in Russian
    • 3.2 Sensitivity to the lexical nature of the predicate
    • 3.3Hungarian
      • 3.3.1 Sensitivity to Aktionsart
      • 3.3.2Different classes of verbs
      • 3.3.3Aspect in HU
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.197.13cor
References (65)
References
Asher, Nicholas & Lascarides, Alex. 2003. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Avilova, Natalia. 1976. Vid glagola i semantika glagol’nogo slova (Verb Aspect and the Semantics of the Verbal Word). Moskva: Nauka.Google Scholar
Babko-Malaya, Olga. 1999. Zero Morphology: A Study of Aspect, Argument Structure and Case. PhD dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Bende-Farkas, Agnès. 2002. Verb Object Dependencies in Hungarian and English: A DRT-based Account. PhD dissertation, Universität Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Benveniste, Emile. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Bertinetto, Pier Marco. 2001. On a frequent misunderstanding in the temporal-aspectual domain: The ‘perfective-telic’ confusion. In Semantic Interfaces, Carlo Cecchetto, Genaro Chierchia & Maria T. Guasti (eds), 177–210. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Bondarko, Alexander. 1971. Grammatičeskaja kategorija i kontekst [Grammatical Category and Context]. Leningrad: Nauka.Google Scholar
Borer, Hagit. 2005. The Normal Course of Events. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Borik, Olga. 2002. Aspect and Reference Time. PhD dissertation, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan & Dahl, Östen. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language 13: 51–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere & Pagliuca, William. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Languages of the World. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Camus, Albert. 1942. L’Etranger (Gallimard, Collection Folio); The Outsider (Penguin Books, 2012; translator: Sandra Smith); Postoronijj (Prometej, 1989; translator: N. Nemčinovoj); Közöny (Szépirodalmi, Budapest, 1989; translator: Gyergyai Albert).Google Scholar
Caudal, Patrick. 2015. The passé composé in Old French and Modern French. In Sentence and Discourse, Jacqueline Guéron (ed.), 178–205. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2016. The aspectual potential of verbs and lexical semantic typology. Paper presented at the Conference Tense, Aspect, Modality, Evidentiality: Comparative, Cognitive, Theoretical, Applied Perspectives, Université Paris Diderot.
Csirmaz, Aniko. 2006. Accusative case and aspect. In Event Structure and the Left Periphery – Studies on Hungarian, Katalina É. Kiss (ed.), 159–199. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Depraetere, Ilse. 1995. On the necessity of distinguishing between (un)boundedness and (a) telicity. Linguistics and Philosophy 18: 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Di Sciullo, Anna-Maria & Slabakova, Roumyana. 2005. Quantification and aspect. In Perspectives on Aspect, Angeliek van Hout, Henriëtte de Swart & Henk Verkuyl (eds), 61–80. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dickey, Stephen M. 2006. Aspectual pairs, goal orientation and po-delimitatives in Russian. Glossos Issue 7: 1–37.Google Scholar
Dik, Simon. 1989. The Theory of Functional Grammar, Part I: The Structure of the Clause. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka & de Swart, Henriëtte. 2003. The Semantics of Incorporation: From Argument Structure to Discourse Transparency. Stanford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Forsyth, John. 1970. A Grammar of Aspect. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Furkó, Péter. 2014. Perspectives on the translation of discourse markers. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 6(2): 181–196.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gehrke, Berit. 2003. Aspectual affixes in Russian and Czech. Ms, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Glovinskaja, Marina. 1982. Semantičeskie tipy vidovyx protivopostavlenij russkogo glagola (Semantic types of aspectual oppositions in the Russian verb). Nauka: Moscou.Google Scholar
Gosselin, Laurent. 1996. Sémantique de la temporalité en français: Un modèle calculatoire et cognitif du temps et de l’aspect. Louvain-la-Neuve: Duculot.Google Scholar
Grønn, Atle. 2004. The Semantics and Pragmatics of the Russian Factual Imperfective. PhD dissertation, Oslo University.Google Scholar
Guillemin-Flescher, Jacqueline. 1981. Syntaxe comparée du français et de l’anglais: Problèmes de traduction. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1982. Aspect between discourse and grammar: An introductory essay for the volume. In Tense-Aspect – Between Semantics and Pragmatics [Typological Studies in Language 1], Paul J. Hopper (ed.), 3–18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Janda, Laura. 2013. Why Russian Aspectual Prefixes Aren’t Empty: Prefixes as Verb Classifiers. Bloomington IN: Slavica.Google Scholar
Kardos, Éva A. 2011. Toward a Scalar Semantic Analysis of Telicity in Hungarian. PhD dissertation, University of Debrecen.Google Scholar
Kiefer, Ferenc. 1994. Some peculiarities of the aspectual system in Hungarian. In Tense, Aspect and Action – Empirical and Theoretical Contributions to Language Typology Carl Bache & Carl Basbøll (eds), 185–205. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiss, Katalina É. 1995. Discourse Configurational Languages [Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax]. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2002. The Syntax of Hungarian [Cambridge Syntax Guides]. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006. The function and syntax of the verbal particle. In Event Structure and the Left Periphery – Studies on Hungarian, Katalina É. Kiss (ed.), 17–56. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klein, Wolfgang. 1994. Time and Language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 1998. The origins of telicity. In Events and Grammar, Susan Rothstein (ed.), 197–236. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leinonen, Marja. 1982. Russian Aspect, ‘temporal’naja lokalizacija’, and Definiteness/ Indefiniteness. PhD dissertation, Helsinki University.Google Scholar
Maslov, Jurij. 1958. Rol’ tak nazyvaemoi perfektivacii i imperfektivacii v processe vozniknovenia glagol’nogo vida (The Role of So-called Perfectivisation and Imperfectivisation in the Process of Appearance of Verbal Aspect). Meždunarodny s”ezd slavistov. Doklady: 3–39. Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR.Google Scholar
McCawley, James. 1971. Tense and time reference in English. In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, Charles J. Fillmore & D. Terence Langendoen (eds), 97–114. New York NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. 2004. Type shifting in Construction Grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics 15: 1–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016. Serving a slice of time: Unifying tense, aspect and modality with aspectual Constructions. Paper presented at the Conference Tense, Aspect, Modality, Evidentiality: Comparative, Cognitive, Theoretical, Applied Perspectives, Université Paris Diderot.
Moens, Marc & Steedman, Mark. 1988. Temporal ontology and temporal reference. In The Language of Time: A Reader [2005], Inderjeet Mani, James Pustejovsky & Robert Gaizauskas (eds), 93–114. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Padučeva, Elena V. 1996. Semantičeskie Issedovanija. Moscow: Škola ‘Jazyki russkoj kul’tury.Google Scholar
Piñon, Christopher. 2006. Weak and strong accomplishments. In Event Structure and the left periphery – Studies on Hungarian, Katalina É. Kiss (ed.), 91–106. Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plungian, Vladimir. 2012. Predislovie. Tipologija aspektual’nyx system i kategorij (Introduction. Typology of aspectual systems and categories). In Issledovanija po teorii grammatiki (Research into Theories of Gramma)], Nikolaj N. Kazanskij (ed.), 7–42. Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Ramchand, Gillian. 2004. Time and the event: The semantics of Russian prefixes. Nordlyd 32(2): 323–361.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1947. Explication de l’étranger. Situations I. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
van Schooneveld, Cornelis Hendrik. 1978. Semantic Transmutations: Prolegomena to a Calculus of Meaning. Bloomington IN: Physsardt.Google Scholar
Smith, Carlota. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Squartini, Mario & Bertinetto, Pier Marco. 2000. The simple and compound past in Romance languages. In Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe, Östen Dahl (ed.), 403–439. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 2004. Slavic prefixes inside and outside VP. Nordlyd 32(2): 205–253.Google Scholar
de Swart, Henriëtte. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16: 347–385. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2000. Tense, aspect and coercion in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Proceedings of the Berkeley Formal Grammar Conference, Miriam Butt & Tracy Holloway King (eds). Standford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
de Swart, Henriëtte & Molendijk, Arie. 2002. Le passé composé narratif: Une analyse discursive de L’Étranger de Camus. In Temps et aspect – De la morphologie à l’interprétation, Brenda Laca (ed.), 193–215. Saint Denis: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Towards a Cognitive Semantics, Vol. 2: Typology and Process in Concept Structuring . Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tenny, Carol. 1994. Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tixonov, Aleksandr N. 1998. Russkij glagol: problemy teorii i leksikografirovanija (The Russian Verb: Problems of Theory and Lexicography). Moskva: Izdatel’stvo Academia.Google Scholar
Surányi, Balázs. 2009. Verbal particles inside and outside vP. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 56, 201–249.Google Scholar
Smith, Sandra. 2012. The Outsider. United Kingdom: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Stuart, Gilbert. 1946. The Stranger. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Tournadre, Nicolas. 2004. Typologie des aspects verbaux et intégration à une théorie du TAM. Bulletin de la Société Linguistique de Paris XCIV(1): 7–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verkuyl, Henk J. 1989. Aspectual classes and aspectual composition. Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 39–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vet, Co. 1980. Temps, aspects et adverbes de temps en français contemporain. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar
Zaliznjak, Anna & Šmelev, Aleksej. 1997. Lekcii po russkoj aspektologii (Lectures on Russian Aspectology). Munich: Otto Sagner.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Treikelder, Anu
2020. Chapter 11. Les temps verbaux et l’ancrage énonciatif en français et en estonien. In The Expression of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality in Albert Camus’sL'Étrangerand Its Translations /L'Étrangerde Camus et ses traductions : questions de temps, d'aspect, de modalité et d'évidentialité (TAME) [Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa, 35], ► pp. 204 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.