A comparison of biaspectual verbs borrowed from Latin into Dutch, Czech and Polish

Abstract

West Germanic languages such as Dutch have a temporal system, but a typical feature of the Slavonic verb system is aspectuality. Most Slavonic borrowed or newlyformed verbs in the technical sphere are based on Latin, however, a language with a rather strict temporal system. Typically, such verbs are mostly borrowed as imperfective (durative) verbs. This paper examines several such verbs and compares their integration into Dutch, Czech and Polish. Dutch has no morphological forms showing aspectuality. However, aspectuality is present, the difference is there a semantic one, between a dynamic or a static character. In this article, ten potentially bi-aspectual verbs borrowed from Latin are discussed, all of them having in Dutch a dynamic character. In Czech and Polish, such verbs will have after borrowing initially a bi-aspectual character. Depending on frequency of use, the verbs will become integrated by adding aspectual prefixes. This integration is illustrated for both Slavonic languages by sentences from recent press articles. Where in the Czech dictionaries, the majority of the analysed verbs are still described as bi-aspectual, it seems that Polish is much faster at changing Latin borrowed verbs into aspectual pairs. One should be, however, cautious as it is often dependent on which dictionary one consults whether a verb is marked as bi-aspectual or as imperfectivum tantum. Nevertheless, the general tendencies are clear.