Inherent Verb Aspect and the Secondary Feature [durative

Abstract

Contrary to the Vendler classification of verb aspect, this paper proposes postulating three aspect types at the lexical level: States, Activities, and Performances. Our proposal is based on the fact that the feature [durative] is not inherent in the verb and Accomplishments are not a homogeneous category. In our system, there are two primary features, [dynamic] and [transitional], and one secondary feature [durative], which specifies Performances further into two categories. It is at the phrasal level that Performances become Accomplishments when the value of [durative] is set positive. Another way of deriving Accomplishments is aspect shift: The value of primary feature [transitional] can change from minus to plus when an activity verb combines with the right kind of argument or adverbial. It is proposed that the term ‘aspect shift’ or ‘type coercion’ be used with restriction: Accomplishments derived from Performances do not exemplify aspect shift since there is not any feature value shift but only specification of the secondary feature in the derivation.