Abstract
The linguistic literature often makes use of the terms '(im)perfective', '(a)telic' and/or '(non)bounded' (as well as other terms like 'terminative', 'conclusive', etc.). However, there is a lot of confusion about the definitions as well as the applicability and relevance of these concepts. In this article we aim to resolve this confusion. We will argue that, at least in English, these distinctions are a matter of 'grammatical aspect', 'ontological (lexical) aspect' and 'actualization aspect', respectively. We will define these categories carefully and show the relevance of each of them by identifying the level of analysis on which they are operative. The three aspectual categories all somehow have to do with the presence or absence of reference to a terminal point of a situation type or of the actualization of a situation on some linguistic level. On the morphological level, there is grammatical aspect (signalled by the verb form), which involves the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect. In English this distinction happens to coincide with the distinction between nonprogressive and progressive aspect, respectively, because progressive aspect is the only kind of imperfective aspect that can be expressed by a special verb form. On the level of the conceptualization of situation types there is the distinction between telic and atelic situation-templates (which are verbs, verb phrases or larger predicate constituents) and between telic and atelic situation types. On the level of reference to actualization of situations there is the distinction between bounded and nonbounded clauses and between bounded and nonbounded actualizations of situations. The article shows not only how the three aspectual categories should be kept apart but also how they interact to constitute the aspectual interpretation of a sentence.
Highlights
The linguistic literature often makes use of the terms ‘(im)perfective’, ‘(a)telic’ and/or ‘(non)bounded’
Despite the fact that features such as [± static], [± agentive], [± homogeneous], [± transitional], [± durative], [± telic], etc.3 apply at the level of verbs, rather than clauses, it is traditional to talk of these features as defining ‘(abstract) types of situations’ or situation types rather than ‘types of situation-templates’, so that people talk of ‘static situations’, ‘agentive situations’ etc., rather than ‘static situation-templates’, ‘agentive situation-templates’ and so on
This shows how grammatical aspect can interact with ontological aspect to determine actualization aspect: run five miles is a telic verb phrase (VP), but since the progressive form only refers to a portion of the middle part of the actualizing situation, the sentence does not represent the actualization of the situation as bounded, i.e., as reaching the natural point of completion
Summary
We use situation as a cover term for the various possible referents of clauses, i.e., as a cover term for anything that can be expressed by a clause, namely an action, an event, a process or a state. Despite the fact that features such as [± static], [± agentive], [± homogeneous], [± transitional], [± durative], [± telic], etc. apply at the level of verbs (and, by extension, VPs and predicate constituents), rather than clauses, it is traditional to talk of these features as defining ‘(abstract) types of situations’ or situation types rather than ‘types of situation-templates’, so that people talk of ‘static situations’, ‘agentive situations’ etc., rather than ‘static situation-templates’, ‘agentive situation-templates’ and so on This practice has sometimes proved a source of confusion in the past, because the term ‘situation type’ is often used in a sense different from ‘abstract type of situation’, viz. In English, perfective aspect is expressed when the verb form used reflects the fact that the speaker wants to refer to the actualization of a situation in its entirety This means that the speaker does not refer to the situation as having an internal temporal structure (with a beginning, middle and end). In At the time, I was writing a novel [which was published a year later], it is clear that the novel-writing must have been completed at some time, otherwise the novel could not have been published; the situation that the speaker refers to with I was writing a novel is not a complete situation but a situation in progress – he only considers the ‘middle’ of the situation
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