The Parameter of Aspect /
The Parameter of Aspect presents a unified theory of aspect within Universal Grammar. It provides an unusual combination of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic approaches to a single domain, and gives detailed linguistic analyses of five languages with very different aspectual systems: English, Frenc...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Corporate Author: | |
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Dordrecht :
Springer Netherlands,
1997.
|
| Edition: | Second Edition. |
| Series: | Studies in linguistics and philosophy ;
43. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | The Parameter of Aspect presents a unified theory of aspect within Universal Grammar. It provides an unusual combination of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic approaches to a single domain, and gives detailed linguistic analyses of five languages with very different aspectual systems: English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Navajo and Russian. Extensive discussion of the linguistic evidence is complemented by a formal semantic treatment in the framework of Discourse Representation Theory, with an explicit procedure for computing aspectual meaning from syntactic surface structure. Among the theoretical innovations is a principled account of the interaction between viewpoint (perfective, imperfective) and situation type (state, event); a level of pragmatic analysis at which contrastive and inferred meanings are stated; a default analysis of sentences that are neither perfective nor imperfective in viewpoint. This second edition has been completely revised to include further development of the two-component theory, including new treatments of boundedness, dynamism and a general account of aspectual shifts. Syntactic and semantic tests are given for determining aspectual categories in all five languages. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Electronic resource. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xvii, 349 pages) |
| ISBN: | 9789401156066 (electronic bk.) 9401156069 (electronic bk.) |
| ISSN: | 0924-4662 ; |