Modal aspects of Badiaranke aspect

Abstract

Abstract This paper argues that the semantics of imperfective aspect in Badiaranke (Atlantic, Niger-Congo) cannot receive an adequate explanation through previous approaches to aspect in other languages (e.g. Klein, 1994; Bonomi, 1997; Smith, 1997; Cipria and Roberts, 2000; Hacquard, 2006). The Badiaranke imperfective marks not only in-progress and habitually recurring eventualities (expected), but also future eventualities, eventualities in consequents of conditionals and counterfactuals, and epistemically probable eventualities (unexpected). Building on Kratzer’s (1981, 1991) analysis of modality, and on Portner’s (1998) modal analysis of the English progressive, I argue that the Badiaranke imperfective entails eventuality realization at some interval in the set of accessible worlds selected by some modal base and ordering source. Pragmatic and syntactic context set the modal base and ordering source, allowing for an underspecified semantics to cover all of the imperfective’s functions.