Perfective Verbs Research Articles

Некоторые типы синтагм с количественным значением в русском и литовском языках

SOME TYPES OF SYNTAGMS WITH QUANTITY MEANING IN RUSSIAN AND LITHUANIAN Summary The article examines the conditions under which the quantitative specification of the direct object (in particular the sense of ‘all’) takes place in the context of the perfective verb. The subject of this article is also syntagms of Russian and Lithuanian (verb of action + noun), which are the phenomena of morphological-lexical representation of the logical idea of multitude. The ar­ticle shows the non-trivial semantic organization of the syntagms which is conditioned by the fact that the interpretation of this idea in the given languages is accompanied by the set of the other mea­nings. The main difference between Russian and Lithuanian syntagms consists in different ways by which elements of the semantic structure are reflected by elements of the surface structure, main­ly by the verbal affixes.

Tense and Aspect in Childhood Language Impairment: Contributions from Hungarian.

Previous studies of children with language impairment (LI) reveal an insensitivity to aspect that may constitute part of the children's deficit. In this study, we examine aspect as well as tense in Hungarian-speaking children with LI. Twenty-one children with LI, 21 typically developing children matched for age, and 21 typically developing children matched for receptive vocabulary scores were tested on their comprehension and production of both imperfective and perfective verb forms in past tense contexts. Although the groups did not differ in their comprehension performance, the children with LI were less accurate than both comparison groups in producing both imperfective and perfective forms. Based on these results, it appears that children with LI have difficulties selecting the appropriate aspectual marking in past tense contexts.

Postpositions and agreement in Rajasthani languages: A comparative analysis of alignment features in Marwari and Harauti

Alignment differences in two Rajasthani languages, Marwari and Harauti, illustrate the distinct functioning of two mechanisms that determine alignment, case marking and agreement. In both languages, the agreement pattern is consistently ergative in sentences constructed with a perfect finite verb form. However, the argument marking pattern differs between the two. Arguments in Rajasthani are either unmarked or marked with a postposition. In the related language Hindi, postpositional markings have been well-identified as case marking. If this were also the situation in Rajasthani, the marking would be accusative. In Marwari, such alignment would form an exception to the prototypical definition of ergativity, which says that ergative agreement is not (or rarely) combined with accusative case marking. To solve this contradistinction, I argue that the argument marking postposition nai in Marwari and Harauti, contrary to Hindi, does not display all the features of the traditional definition of case marking; for instance, the postposition does not indicate a relationship between the head it marks and the verb, but rather serves other purposes. In Marwari, the occurrence of the postposition is subject to Differential Object Marking based on semantics, and in Harauti the postposition is even less of a case marker, as the same postposition may be used for A and O. This points to the conclusion that postpositional marking in Rajasthani is first and foremost a semantic marking that adds an extra dimension to the argument it marks and has no influence on the relationship between the argument and the verb. The latter relationship is expressed by the agreement pattern, which fulfills a distinguishing function.

An investigation of learning transfer in English-for-general-academic-purposes writing instruction

This case study involved a detailed examination of learning transfer from an English-for-general-academic-purposes writing course to tasks that involve writing in other academic courses. Data were gathered over one academic year from 11 students enrolled in the writing course. These students participated in a series of interviews and provided copies of writing they produced in the writing course and other courses. The interview transcripts were examined for reports of learning transfer, and the writing samples were examined for transfer of 10 learning outcomes targeted in the writing course. Findings indicated that a wide variety of learning outcomes did transfer from the writing course across task types and disciplines; however, this learning transfer was more frequent (a) for some learning outcomes (e.g., avoiding fused sentences; framing; using temporal transitions) than for others (e.g., using past perfect verb tense accurately; using similes/metaphors), (b) in some disciplines (e.g., humanities; social sciences) than in others (e.g., natural sciences), and (c) with some task types (e.g., synthesis of multiple sources) than with others (e.g., explanation of calculations). Implications of these findings for research and practice in second language writing education are discussed.

Passives and Resultatives in Marshallese

In the literature, Marshallese verbs are often categorized as perfective or as passive. However, sentences containing perfectives and passives share numerous morphological, syntactic, and semantic similarities. As a result, it is difficult to tell whether these sentences are perfective or passive. In this paper, I examine perfective and passive verbs and sentences and provide semantic and syntactic evidence supporting the existence of two verb categories. First, I show that while passive verbs denote events, so-called perfective verbs denote the resulting state of events and are thus resultatives rather than perfectives. Second, I show that passive verbs are syntactically different from resultatives in that they may cooccur with an agent phrase preceded by in . Lastly, I make a case for the existence of a passive construction in Marshallese and argue that in is the head of a Voice projection.

Verbal inflection in the acquisition of Kuwaiti Arabic

This paper investigates the distribution of imperfective and perfective verb inflections in Kuwaiti Arabic. Spontaneous speech of three children (1 ; 8-3 ; 1) was analyzed for accuracy and error types. The results showed that the verbal inflections appeared correct almost all the time (89-97% of the time). Agreement errors appeared 3-11% of the time. The children did not inflect the verb in obligatory contexts in describing ongoing action 2-12% of the time. It is predicted that children acquiring Arabic would select a default form in place of fully inflected forms. The children used a non-finite form which is identical to the imperfective verbal bare stem to describe ongoing action, which is consistent with Benmamoun's argument (1999, 2000) that the imperfective bare verb is the default form in Arabic. The findings of the study are discussed in the light of the Optional Infinitive (OI) stage argued by Wexler (1994, 1996, 1998). The fact that the non-finite is non-tensed makes this type of behavior consistent with the OI.

Metonymy of Aspect/Aspects of Metonymy

Ever since Lakoff and Johnson (1980) published their seminal monograph Metaphors We Live By, metaphor has been a cornerstone in cognitive linguistics, while metonymy has received less attention. However, recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in metonymy (Peirsman and Geeraerts 2006 and Croft 2006), and it is therefore natural to ask what the role of metonymy is in grammatical systems and how metonymy interacts with metaphor in such systems. The present paper sheds light on these questions on the basis of an analysis of Russian aspect, which Janda (2004 and 2007) has analyzed in terms of metaphor. I argue that metonymy relates the submeanings of the perfective aspect (section 3), that metonymy is pivotal in the relations among submeanings of the imperfective aspect (section 4), and - following Janda (2008) - that the relations between imperfective and perfective verbs involve metonymy (section 5). I propose that metaphor and metonymy are complementary in the Russian aspectual system; metaphor relates events to matter (objects and substances), while metonymy connects different types of events to each other (section 6). Before we turn to metonymy and its interaction with metaphor, it is necessary to define metaphor and metonymy and clarify the role of metaphor in Russian aspect (sections 1 and 2).

Do It Once: A Case Study of the Russian -nu- Semelfactives

It is known that Russian has semelfactive Perfective verbs suffixed in -nu- such as prygnut' ‘leap once’, but what do we know about how these verbs are formed and their role in the overall system of Russian aspect? Beyond occasional mention of such verbs in grammar books, there is little information, because no quantitative study of these verbs has been undertaken. This article attempts to rectify the situation by analyzing a database of 322 -nu- semelfactives and 1438 aspectually related verbs. Our approach makes it possible to probe the semantic and morphological characteristics associated with -nu- suffixation. In doing so we also address larger theoretical issues, such as the relationship between -nu- semelfactives and other actional Perfectives like zaprygat' ‘begin to leap’, and the existence of prefixed semelfactives like vyprygnut' ‘jump out once’. Our findings suggest revisions to current models of Russian aspect and indicate potential directions for further research.

Morphological dissociations in the L2 acquisition of an inflectionally rich language

This study investigates the validity of Pinker’s (1991, 1999) Dual-Mechanism Model in the mental representation of regular and irregular active past perfective verbs in adult non-native Greek. In this model, regular inflection is computed by a symbolic rule, while irregular words are fully stored in the lexicon. A nonce-probe elicitation task showed that both natives and non-natives generalized the regular affix -s, and more so in regular than in irregular perfective verb stems. Moreover, the degree of similarity of the nonce verbs to real ones did not affect the affixation of regulars. Dissimilar irregulars were affixed less often than similar ones by the intermediate learners but neither by the advanced learners, nor by the natives. Our findings support computation for regulars, as proposed by the Dual Mechanism Model, both in native and in non-native language acquisition. Yet, the model’s claim for full storage of all irregular words is not verified.

Zur Frage der Resultativität in slawischen Verben

In the sense of perfective verbs three things can be developed: the action, the time, the non-substantial elements of verb, and the “object” of verb in a wider sense, the aspectual participant in the events (in German: der aspektuelle Aktant), in other words the substantial element of verb. By the aspectual participant I mean object or person, which or who fills objective and subjective function in the sentence, and characterizes the verb “from inside”.

Verb aspect, event structure, and coreferential processing

We used an off-line story continuation task and an online ERP reading task to investigate coreferential processing following sentences that portrayed transfer-of-possession events as either ongoing or completed, using imperfective and perfective verb aspect (e.g., Amanda was shifting/shifted some poker chips to Scott). The story continuation task demonstrated that people were more likely to begin continuations with references to the Goal than to the Source, but that perfective aspect strengthened this bias. In the ERP task we probed expectations for Source and Goal referents by employing pronouns that matched one of the referents in gender. The ERP results were consistent with the biases revealed in the story continuation task and demonstrate that the difference in Goal bias for the two forms of aspect was manifested differently in the brain. These results provide novel behavioral and neurocognitive evidence that verb aspect influences the construction of situation models during language comprehension.

Повторяемость и вид в русском языке

Повторяемость и вид в русском языке Понятие повторяемости имеет огромное значение для человеческого познания и тем самым языка. Можно выделить различные типы повторяемости в зависимости от того, что именно повторяется в повторяющемся событии. Выражение повторяемости в русском языке тесно связано с противопоставлением несовершенного и совершенного видов. Характер повторения, выражаемого глаголами несовершен¬ного и совершенного видов, мотивирован их инвариантным / прототипическим значением. Глаголы несовершенного вида выражают повторение в полном смысле — повторение с одними и теми же индивидными объектами. Совершенный вид специализируется на выражении дистрибутивного повторения, то есть повторения с разными индивидными объектами одного рода. Он также может выражать повторение на более высоких уровнях абстракции, а именно повторение различных типов событий, принадлежащих к некоторому более обобщенному типу событий. Указание на повторение посредством глаголов совершенного вида может также использоваться как характеристика субъекта повторяющихся событий.

Emptiness is not so empty: The meaning of the Russian prefix <i>вы-</i> in the natural perfective verbs

This paper analyzes the meaning of the so-called "empty" prefix вы- (‘out-') of natural perfective verbs in the Russian language. It is argued that the prefix is not semantically empty, but displays meanings that can be analyzed as a radial category.

Some peculiarities of the Macedonian verbal system in a Slavonic and Balkan context

The subject of the article are some peculiarities in the verbal system which give Macedonian a special place within the Slavonic language family and within the Balkan Sprachbund. In concrete terms, Macedonian is characterized by some features which approximate it towards Modern Greek: a tendency towards unification of the means of aspectual shift, exclusively dependent use of the present forms of perfective verbs and the de facto existence of only one past tense with allomorphs for both aspects. The so-called as a Balkanism shows differences in comparison with Bulgarian and proximity with Albanian and Modern Greek, whereas the parallelism of the two perfect forms and leads to a redistribution of their functions.

Oblik kondicionala u funkciji označavanja ponavljane radnje u prošlosti

Oblik kondicionala u funkciji označavanja ponavljane radnje u prošlosti Kondicional u funkciji označavanja ponavljane radnje u prošlosti jest odlika hrvatsko-bosansko-srpskog dijasistema (i to ne cijelog) u odnosu na situaciju u drugim slavenskim jezicima. Čini se da je ta upotreba, historijski gledano, zamijenila sličnu upotrebu imperfekta koja je postojala u staroslavenskom i starohrvatskom, posebno u slučaju svršenih glagola, i pogotovo u zavisnim rečenicama, gdje se u suvremenom jeziku habitualni kondicional najčešće pojavljuje. Habitualni kondicional od svršenih glagola, koji je češći nego onaj od nesvršenih, "ispunjava prazninu u sustavu" jer se na taj način može eksplicitno razlikovati ponavljana izvršena radnja (izrečena kondicionalom svršenog glagola) od ponavljane neizvršene radnje ili ponavljanog procesa. Međutim, u suvremenom jeziku konkuriraju mu kako upotreba perfekta nesvršenih glagola u toj funkciji, tako i kondicional nesvršenih glagola. Pitanje je u kojoj mjeri glagolski vid, vrsta ponavljanja (izrečena poglavito priloškim oznakama), povezanost s drugom radnjom ili vanjskim čimbenikom te upotreba u zavisnim ili nezavisnim rečenicama određuju izbor kondicionala. Kao prvi pokušaj odgovora na ovo pitanje, autori su na temelju Amsterdamskog paralelnog slavenskog korpusa (ASPAC) i na temelju dijela Hrvatskog nacionalnog korpusa (HNK) istražili upotrebu habitualnog kondicionala u kombinaciji s nekim frekvencijskim priloškim oznakama, kao i njegovu upotrebu u zavisnim rečenicama s veznicima čim i kad.

The syntactic representation of perfectivity

In Russian, optionally transitive verbs become obligatorily transitive with the addition of a lexical perfective prefix. This paper gives a Distributed Morphology approach to this problem. It argues that the Roots that underlie these verbs introduce no argument; in the imperfective case, the object is introduced by the verbalizing head, while in the perfective case, the object is introduced by the perfective prefix itself. The perfective prefix combines with the Root before it combines with the verbalizing head to create an altered Root that is interpreted as a state and introduces an internal argument. The analysis is then extended to explain some interesting asymmetries between imperfective and perfective verbs with passive participles and negation.

Crosslinguistic influence versus intralingual interference: A pedagogically motivated investigation into the acquisition of the present perfect

Abstract This paper discusses the extent to which both crosslinguistic and intralingual differences may be considered as factors causing errors committed by Malay learners in the acquisition of the present perfect which has been identified as an area of considerable difficulty in the learning of English grammar. Using elicitation procedures that probe into learners’ intralingual and interlingual confusion, the researcher offers some useful data that can provide new insights into the design of activities appropriate to learners encountering difficulty in acquiring tenses. Percentages of errors made in the use of the present perfect, in particular, were analysed and explained by (1) identifying the differences between the subjects’ mother tongue and the target language, (2) considering the subjects’ tendency to use certain verb forms in various situations, and (3) referring to the rules governing its use in English. The findings suggest that a large portion of the errors can be ascribed to both crosslinguistic differences in the use of perfective verb phrases and intralingual difficulties in differentiating the temporal references of certain verb forms. Based on the findings, the researcher has come up with important recommendations on how the learning of the present perfect may be facilitated by comparisons and contrasts of the rules governing its use and how a different pattern of exercise that stimulates conscious internalisation of crosslinguistic and intralingual differences can be given to learners.

Zur Frage der momentanen Handlung im heutigen Russischen

The paper examines some problems of the Russian verbs that express the momentary character of the action. In the first line the author deals with the morphologically marked verbs which he calls prototypical on the basis of their grammatization ( прыгнуть, толкнуть etc.), and he also mentions the formally not characterized momentary verbs, such as бросить, хватить etc. He further analyzes, whether the imperfective pairs of the momentary perfective verbs which are actually multiplicatives are able to express one single quantum of series of act in present tense. This discrete moment is equivalent to the momentary perfective past tense semantically.

Aspect and argument realization: A study on antecedentless null objects in Greek

The aim of this study is to investigate the interaction between viewpoint aspect and argument realization. More specifically, we examine the correlation of +/−perfective verb forms in Greek and null objects with indefinite, non-specific interpretation. It is argued that although null objects are possible with both perfective and imperfective verbs, imperfective verbs favour object omission more than perfectives. We claim that this is due to two reasons: first, that there is a difference in the syntactic representation of overt direct objects with perfective and imperfective verbs, which is associated with the notion of economy in their respective derivations, i.e. Merge as opposed to Merge + Move; secondly, that perfective verbs show an interpretive difference at the LF interface depending on the overt versus null nature of the direct object, whereas imperfectives do not. The difference is related to the semantic notion of telicity. This prediction has been tested in an off-line sentence-completion task with two groups of native speakers of Greek, an adult and a child group. The data revealed that native speakers of Greek preferred to use overt DP objects with perfective verbs more than with imperfectives. This finding is interpreted as showing that Aspect is a functional feature with an effect on argument realization.

How Reliable are the Results? Comparing Corpus-Based Studies of the Present Perfect

Abstract The number of linguistic analyses conducted on the basis of authentic language corpora has steadily grown during the last decades. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reliability of individual corpus-based studies by comparing them to studies covering similar or identical grounds. As the subject of investigation the present perfect has been chosen. Ten major corpus-based studies of the present perfect will be surveyed focussing on three main aspects: the frequency of present perfect verb phrases, the temporal specification of utterances in the present perfect and the functions assigned to present perfect constructions.