verbal Aspect

La raison principale des confusions notionnelles, évoquées dans le titre, se cache, selon l’avis de l’auteur, derrière les critères définitoires non homogènes à la base desquels on définit au départ toute catégorie grammaticale. L’analyse pertinente de l’aspect du verbe pronominal est entravée par une (con)fusion entre l’aspect syntaxique et l’aspect sémantique (Aktionsart) du même verbe, ainsi qu’à la «mise en circulation» de certaines paires de notions figurant chez plusieurs
auteurs comme synonymes et comme notions éloignées chez d’autres.

Rec.: Der besprochene Band liefert einen wichtigen Beitrag zu den theoretischen und angewandten Studien über die Aktionsart und lässt hoffen, dass man in der nächsten Etappe auch der didaktisch-methodischen Auswertung von Ergebnissen dieser Studien mehr Aufmerksamkeit schenken wird.

This paper deals with the cases in Russian where the perfective aspect (PF) is, or is not, replaced by the imperfective aspect (IPF) after a modal verb with negation: "dolzhen kupit’" PF ‘must buy’ — "ne dolzhen pokupat’" IPF ‘must not buy’, but "mozhet kupit’" PF ‘can buy’ — "ne mozhet kupit’" PF ‘cannot buy'. It shows that in most contexts this substitution is governed by one rule: if the subject of modality controls the action, PF is changed to IPF; if not, PF is retained. Hence, the change normally occurs in deontic contexts, when the subject has a full control over the situation, and does not occur if the control is only partial. Epistemic contexts and expressions of internal modality do not allow the substitution. Expressions of will allow both possibilities.
The same rule is acting in other parts of Russian grammar, including the well-known case of negated imperatives.
The main exception from the rule of controllability is that PF can be retained if the absence of action contradicts the speaker’s expectations. This is also paralleled in the so-called “contrary-to-expectations present”.
The paper also discusses a number of particular cases where the expected substitution is blocked.

Il raffronto tra le valenze aspettuali della perifrasi italiana STARE + GERUNDIO e quelle della perifrasi spagnola ESTAR + GERUNDIO rappresenta un argomento molto interessante da analizzare in chiave contrastiva; si tratta di uno degli aspetti più significativi emersi dalla mia tesi di dottorato, dedicata allo studio di alcune perifrasi italiane in rapporto alle loro (morfologicamente) corrispondenti in spagnolo, e ai
relativi fenomeni d’interferenza che scaturiscono nel percorso di apprendimento dell’italiano da parte di studenti ispanofoni. La perifrasi ESTAR + GERUNDIO è ampiamente utilizzata dagli ispanofoni per esprimere azioni di tipo continuativo, con ausiliare al passato prossimo o al trapassato prossimo; al contrario, la perifrasi italiana non può essere utilizzata con ausiliare in tempo composto, potendo veicolare modalità aspettuale progressiva, ma non continuativa. Lo studente ispanofono che, per influsso della sua lingua madre, utilizza STARE + GERUNDIO con ausiliare in tempo composto, incappa dunque in un calco morfologico, creando una forma perifrastica agrammaticale in lingua meta. I sillabi attualmente in uso, così come le programmazioni in vigore presso la maggior parte delle Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas (EOI) spagnole, propongono la tematizzazione della perifrasi italiana STARE + GERUNDIO entro il livello di competenza A2, cosa che si riflette anche nella progressione tematica dei manuali e grammatiche di lingua italiana attualmente disponibili sul mercato e utilizzati in queste istituzioni. Cionondimeno, i risultati emersi dal mio progetto di dottorato, che si è concentrato su due gruppi di studenti di italiano di livello B2 (uno della EOI Jesús Maestro di Madrid e uno della EOI Drassanes di Barcellona), dimostrerebbero che questi aspetti di contrastività tra STARE + GERUNDIO e ESTAR + GERUNDIO, per quanto identificati ormai da anni
nell’ambito della didattica dell’italiano per ispanofoni, sono ben lungi dall’essere “sotto controllo”: nei due gruppi di studenti da me presi come campione, la percentuale di calchi formali generata dall’interferenza tra i due modelli perifrastici in questione è piuttosto significativa.
Attualmente, sto portando avanti la mia indagine presso altre EOI: l’obbiettivo è capire fino a che punto questo tipo di interferenza è radicato nell’interlingua degli studenti, per iniziare a elaborare una riflessione su possibili proposte contrastive da intraprendere a livello didattico che possano prevenire l’insorgenza (e fossilizzazione) di calchi formali.

English aspectual particles in phrasal verbs have been since Brinton (1985) commonly treated as markers of telicity, i.e. markers of an inherent endpoint of events, e.g. eat (atelic) – eat up (telic). The present paper tests this assumption on 100 aspectual phrasal verbs with ten different particles. Minimal pairs of sentences with and without particles have been created and tested by two of Dowty’s (1979) aspectual tests. For these tests acceptability judgments have been elicited from native speakers. The paper points out methodological problems which should be taken into consideration in any study that relies on eliciting acceptability judgments. Most importantly, the results of the present study suggest, contra what is standardly assumed, that aspectual particles are not primarily markers of telicity. Instead, particles contribute other aspectual and non-aspectual meanings.

Монография является первым обобщающим типологическим исследованием префиксальной перфективации — феномена, до сих пор получившего подробное освещение лишь в славянских языках. В книге на синхронном уровне рассматривается материал славянских и балтийских языков, идиша, немецкого, венгерского, осетинского, а также картвельских языков — грузинского, сванского, мегрельского и лазского. Подробно изучаются морфологические свойства глагольных префиксов (превербов), их семантика, особенности семантики и функционирования превербных глаголов, устройство аспектуальных систем. Полученные эмпирические данные подвергаются количественному анализу, позволяющему выделить две области кластеризации систем префиксального перфектива — славянскую и кавказскую, — различающиеся набором харак-теризующих их признаков. Отдельно исследуются диахрония систем превербов и перфективации в рассматриваемых языковых семьях, возможные типологические параллели в других ареалах и типы наблюдаемых в этой области контактных явлений, для чего привлекается материал ряда миноритарных идиомов (цыганских, славянских, балтийских, балканороманских, финно-угорских). Делаются эмпирически обоснованные выводы о соотношении генетически унаследованного, универсально-типологического и контактного в наблюдаемом ареальном распределении систем префиксального перфектива в языках Центральной и Восточной Европы и Кавказа.

Opće je poznata činjenica da je glagolski vid jedan od najtežih, ako ne i najteži dio hrvatskoga jezika za većinu inojezičnih govornika hrvatskoga jezika. Razlog je tomu složenost te jezične kategorije i činjenica da za odgovarajuću primjenu glagolskoga vida nije dovoljno poznavati glagolsku morfologiju, koja je u hrvatskome već sama po sebi vrlo složena. Za pravilnu je primjenu glagolskoga vida, koji se često definira kao govornikov subjektivan pogled na radnju, presudno i dobro poznavanje sintakse, ali i semantike, odnosno široko znanje o svijetu viđeno kroz prizmu hrvatskoga jezika. Nemogućnost davanja uvijek jasnih, jednoznačnih i egzaktnih pravila o uporabi vida u nastavi inojezičnoga hrvatskoga predstavlja znatnu poteškoću i nastavnicima i studentima. U radu se govori o glagolskome vidu kao dijelu šire jezične kategorijeaspektnosti te mogućnostima, odnosno preduvjetima za njegovo usvajanje. Poučavanje glagolskoga vida neodvojivo je povezano s upućivanjem i poučavanjem druge sastavnice aspektnosti -s leksičkim vidom, odnosno tipom glagolske situacije, tj. akcionalnosti ili s aktionsartom. Na temelju nastavnog iskustva u poučavanju hrvatskoga J2 i primjera iz nastavne prakse te široke aspektološke literature problematizira se složenost te kategorije i njezino inkorporiranje u nastavu inojezičnoga hrvatskoga od početnih do naprednih razina. Pozornost se posvećuje i izvanjezičnim čimbenicima koji mogu utjecati na uporabu vida, drugim riječima, slučajevima kad jezični obilježivači nisu dostatni za odabir svršenoga ili nesvršenoga oblika, već za odabir glagolskoga vida postaju relevantni koncepti kao što su specifično zajedničko znanje sugovornika, očekivanje, veličina objekta i slično.

In Russian, the negation after a modal verb often - though not always - triggers the aspect of the subordinated verb: perfective becomes imperfective. It is shown here that the change of the aspect depends on the controllability of the action: if the action is controlled by its subject, the aspect becomes imperfective; otherwise it remains perfective.
The abstract was published as:
Гусев В. Ю. Отрицание, несовершенный вид, обязанности и свободная воля в русском языке // Грамматические категории в языках мира: иерархия и взаимодействие (Санкт-Петербург, 22—24 сентября 2016 г.): Материалы докладов. СПб.: Нестор-История, 2016. С. 34—41.

The purpose of this study is to examine specific issues within the grammar of the Sika dialect of the Yaeyama language, a Southern Ryukyuan language spoken on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa, Japan. The paper has three chapters: an overview dealing with major typological features, a chapter dedicated to verbs (morphophonology, TAM system), and a chapter examining some syntactic issues. Regarding the verbs of Sika, previous studies have recommended many phonological rules to explain the process from the underlying layer to the phonetic layer of roots and affixes. It is the insistence of this study that the phonetic changes in all applications can be explained with relatively few phoneme rules. It can contribute greatly to simplifying the description of the phonetic morphology of Sika. As for the accusative verb, it has been argued in previous literature that the direct object selected by the transitive verb is typically "bare case" that has no particle, and the rare object markers [=ba] and [=ju] are merely optional elements. In the present research, these object markers select highly distinctive objects in a certain markedness hierarchy, and "definiteness," "specificitiy," and givenness /naturalness" It has been found to have a deep relationship with their distribution. Therefore, it can be said that these direct object markers in Sika are not optional but are obligatory based on the O that they mark.

Cross-lin guis ti cal ly, the expression of the as pec tual op po si tion 'Per fective-Imperfective' by means of pre verbs is a quite rare phenomenon; the la bel 'Sla vic-style as pect' proposed for this de rivational ca te go ry re flects the fact that the Slavic lan guage fa mily (Rus sian above all) has, un til recently, been the pri mary sour ce of assumptions and data about as pect. However, similar sys tems are to be found al so in other languages and lan guage fa mi lies, which can be compared and ar ranged along a scale according to their degree of gram ma ti ca li za tion. The present article is a first attempt to compare and describe typologically some aspectual or aspectual-like features of three lan gua ges spoken in the Caucasus, Russian, Georgian and Ossetic; it discusses their beha viour and illustrates some pa ra me ters of variation within this ca te go ry. Further, the possibility of con tact induced changes is briefly illustrated.

Polish Verbal Aspects in Focus. This book is intended primarily for initiated readers: slavists, polonists, aspectologists and teachers of Polish but it will be useful to anyone studying for the state examinations in Polish, as well as those interested in the Polish verbal aspect for any other reason. The book consists of a preface, three chapters, notes, a Polish-Hungarian structural aspect dictionary, a summary in English and in Polish and a collective bibliography. Chapter one is rather introductory. It is entitled Aspect theory questions and aspectual usage and deals with the question of the possibility of an all-embracing aspect theory. Refuting prevailing views on human language and its category of the aspect as a stable and rational system based on strict and absolute rules, the author presents arguments in favour of the existence of communication fragments (CFs) being the fundamental units of language (and aspectual) usage. Apart from the cognitive approach presented in this chapter, however, the author also discusses the structuralist aspect description framework and emphasizes its importance especially, when it comes to language education. According to the author they are complementary rather than competing approaches. The chapter ends with the suggestion that an elaborate systematization and a clear-cut presentation of Polish verb derivation in the form of a structural aspect dictionary seem to be necessary. Chapter two entitled "The verbal aspect in Polish and in Hungarian from a glottodidactic viewpoint" focuses on Polish verbal aspect and on the Hungarian functional equivalents of aspectual meanings in modern Polish. The author enumerates and discusses the means by the help of which Polish aspectual meanings can be expressed in Hungarian. They are the following: verbal prefixes, suffixes, syntactic constructions and paraphrases. The author comes to the conclusion that the expression of aspectual meanings in Hungarian is not compulsory and the means serving for the expression of such meanings are not as systematic as they are in Polish.
A Polish-Hungarian Structural Aspect Dictionary forms the second part of the book. With 182 pages, the dictionary comprises a vocabulary of 3199 Polish and 3005 Hungarian items. The Polish verbs with their Hungarian equivalents are divided into four semantic groups, such as statives, processives, causatives and verbs of action. The entries are arranged in alphabetical order. Many entries offer also idiomatic expressions or sentences exemplifying usage. Although this aspect dictionary is not unprecedented, it is unique in the sense that a Polish-Hungarian structural aspect dictionary has not yet been published.

Većina lingvista smatra da glagolski aspekt u slavenskim i indoiranskim jezicima spada u bazične kategorijalne vektore (Nels 1992:5), pošto je evidentno da postoji direktna veza između aspekatskih značenja i morfoloških sredstava koja se upotrebljavaju da ih izraze. Razumljivo je da postoje razlike u jezičkospecifičnim realizacijama aspekatske opozicije, međutim, semantika ove kategorije i interakcija sa drugim glagolskim kategorijama je polazišna osnova za njenu analizu u navedenim jezicima. Kroz pregled općih lingvističkih teorija o glagolskom aspektu, pokušat ćemo da definiramo njegovu prirodu i pravo značenje kao općelingvističke kategorije, ali i kao kategorije u perzijskom i bosanskom jeziku-predstavnicima indoiranskih i slavenskih jezika. U studiji R. Allena " The Verb Aspect System of Present Day American English " (1966), uglavnom je data karakterizacija glagolskog aspekta u engleskom jeziku, bez njegove analize kao općelingvističke kategorije. Prema Allenu, engleski glagoli imaju binarnu aspekatsku opoziciju: inkluziv (perfektivni aspekt) i intruziv (imperfektivni aspekt), s tim da on imperfektivni aspekt posmatra kao nemarkirani član, a perfektivni je markirani član opozicije inkluziv vs. intruziv (Allen 1966:219). Ovaj stav je očito pod utjecajem aspekatske binarne opozicije u ruskom jeziku: perfektivno/imperfektivno. Ova analogija je prilično problematična, pošto je u ruskom, kao i u bosanskom jeziku, imperfektivni član formalno nemarkiran, a perfektivni član opozicije

Contributi italiani al 14. congresso internazionale degli Slavisti : Ohrid, 10-16 settembre 2008 / a cura di Alberto Alberti ... [et al.]. -Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2008. (Biblioteca di Studi slavistici ; 7) In testa al front. : Associazione italiana degli Slavisti http://digital.casalini.it/9788884537713 ISBN 978-88-8453-771-3 (online) ISBN 978-88-8453-770-6 (print) 491.8 La collana Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici è curata dalla redazione di Studi Slavistici, rivista di proprietà dell'Associazione Italiana degli Slavisti (<http://epress.unifi.it/riviste/ss>).

Expressions with an aspectual variant of a light verb, e.g. take on debt vs. have debt, are frequent in texts but often difficult to classify between verbal idioms, light verb constructions or compositional phrases. We investigate the properties of such expressions with a disputed membership and propose a selection of features that determine more satisfactory boundaries between the three categories in this zone, assigning the expressions to one of them.

Schipper, A. (2020). Aboutness and ontology: a modest approach to truthmakers. Philosophical Studies, February 2020, Volume 177, Issue 2, pp 505–533.
Download the in-print copy here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-018-1192-6

Truthmaker theory has been used to argue for substantial conclusions about the categorial structure of the world, in particular that states of affairs are needed to play the role of truthmakers. In this paper, I argue that closely considering the role of aboutness in truthmaking, that is considering what truthbearers are about, yields the result that there is no good truthmaker-based reason to think that truthmakers must be states of affairs understood as existing entities, whether complex or simple. First, I introduce an aboutness-based account of truthmaking as a metaphysically modest alternative to the orthodox necessitarian account of truthmaking. Second, I discuss the distinction between states and events that has been made on the basis of linguistic evidence regarding aspectual markers and nominalisation. I argue that the modest approach to truthmaking allows us to accept that there is a real distinction between states and events without requiring that the distinction is ontologically substantial. Specifically, what we are talking about with state-truthbearers really differs from what we are talking about with event-truthbearers, but this difference need not be understood as a difference in kinds of entities. Because of its overall modesty, this is a theoretically virtuous result.

This paper focuses on Polish verbal aspect and on the Hungarian functional equivalents of aspectual meanings in modern Polish. The author enumerates and discusses the means by the help of which Polish aspectual meanings can be expressed in Hungarian. They are the following: verbal prefixes, suffixes, syntactic constructions and
paraphrases. The author comes to the conclusion that the expression of aspectual meanings in Hungarian is not compulsory and the means serving for the expression of such meanings are not as systematic as they are in Polish.

В статье рассматриваются средства выражения значений, соответствующих подготовительной стадии ситуации, в русском языке. Указание на подготовительную стадию ситуации может производиться несколькими способами: в рамках сочетаний с вот-вот, никак не (все не, все никак не), было (и чуть было не). Как показывает анализ, рассматриваемые языковые средства обладают рядом общих свойств. Так, во всех рассматриваемых конструкциях предпочтительным оказывается употребление предикатов СВ. Употребление предикатов будущего времени НСВ исключается, использование предикатов прошедшего и настоящего времени НСВ ограничено узким кругом глаголов с модальной семантикой.

The paper focuses on the means used to refer to the preparatory stage of a situation in Russian. It is shown that several constructions in Russian aim to express the idea that a situation is to or was to occur. In this respect, the conctructions vot-vot + V, nikak ne (vse ne, vse nikak ne) + V, bylo (and chut' bylo ne) + V are examined. The analysis reveals that these linguistic means have certain common features. In these constructions the use of perfective predicate is preferable and its temporal characteristic is defined by the main function of the " auxiliary " element. Future imperfective predicates are excluded from the analysis, while the use of present and past imperfectives is mainly restricted to the verbs with modal semantics.

Within the framework of the theory of enunciation, this paper sets out to study the historical present of Modern Greek. According to traditional grammar the historical present is a «metaphorical usage of the basic function of present». In other words, the historical present describes an action that happened in the past: the enunciator is mentally transferred in the past, so that he can see the actions taking place «in front of his eyes». H is d escription gets vivid. We infer that this particular usage of the historical present can be explained without the d istinction between basic and metaphorical functions. The historical present can, on the contrary, be explained in terms of aoristicity, absence of quantification, absence of subjectivity, qualification, etc., as w ell as all other functions of the present tense. After all, the present doesn't describe an action that is happening now ; it is a timeless tense. With the historical present the procedure is presented as an open compact whole, because of the enestotic stem. The closure is given by the utterance.

Janda et al. (2013) propose an analysis of Russian aspectual prefixes as verb classifiers, arguing that the prefix which forms the 'natural perfective' from a given verb serves to classify that verb according to its semantic characteristics. This analysis contrasts with the traditional analysis of Russian aspect, described by Tixonov (1998) and others, in which natural perfectives are formed via the addition of 'empty' prefixes which contribute no semantic content of their own. In Tohono O’odham (formerly known as Papago, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in present-day Arizona and Mexico), as in Russian, there is a broad two-way distinction between two aspects, perfective and imperfective (Saxton 1982:232). In a fashion similar to the traditional aspectological assumption that there are lexically empty perfectivizing prefixes in Russian, traditional analyses of O’odham aspect posit a process of lexically empty perfectivization. In O’odham, the perfective is usually considered to be formed from the imperfective by truncation of the final consonant, in large part due to a lack of clear and separable semantic content in that segment (Mason 1950; Hale 1965; Saxton 1982; Zepeda 1983; Hill & Zepeda 1992; Kosa 2008). In this paper, I argue instead that O’odham imperfective verbs are formed from perfective verbs by suffixation, and that the suffixes involved are not ‘empty’, but serve a verb-classifying function similar to that of aspectual prefixes in Russian. Imperfectivizing suffixes have been proposed in the literature, by Dolores (1913) and Stonham (1994), but this hypothesis has not yet been systematically investigated. This paper represents a first attempt to do so. Data for this study are drawn from a nearly 5,000-verb database created from a two-volume dictionary of Tohono O’odham usage (Mathiot 1973a; 1973b). A preliminary analysis of these verbs supports a correlation between the final consonant of the imperfective and the verb’s lexical semantics, demonstrating that like those of Russian, O’odham aspectual morphemes fulfill the criteria for a verb classifier system as described by McGregor (2002), and providing further evidence that research on Slavic aspect can inform typological studies of verbal aspect cross-linguistically.

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This paper examines the construction of verbal aspect as a sub-case of generation of verbal lexical meaning. The analysis is based on Pustejovsky's (1995) Generative Lexicon and assumes the existence of a set of lexical agreement processes that match the lexical features of arguments (and adjuncts) with the information contained in the meta-entry of the verb in the mental lexicon. Verbal meta-entries include distinct sub-structures, among them the Event Structure, which is composed of different phases or sub-events. The materializa-tion of some subevents or others depends on the agreement processes triggered by the arguments and adjuncts and gives rise to different aspectual meanings for the same verb. 1. The construction of verbal aspect. General remarks The construction of verbal aspect is a complex phenomenon wherein the different types of information provided by words making up the predicate are involved. This interaction, which was considered as problematic in classical literature on aspect, was attributed to the compositional nature of lexical aspect. Recently, it has been described as the result of the functioning of mechanisms responsible for generating the lexical meaning. Specifically, it is assumed that there is a mechanism of aspectual coercion whereby argument information determines the lexical aspect of verbs.

While much work in biblical studies has been offered in the form of theological exposition and historical critical speculation of literary origins of the gospels, few modern biblical studies scrutinize the language of these gospels from rigorous linguistic criteria. This paper takes a discourse analytic approach from the field of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) founded by M. A. K. Halliday. The notion of cohesive chaining is taken in order to evaluate the level of literary unity in the original Greek of the episode of the transfiguration narrative found within the Gospel of Matthew. Cohesive chaining will be defined; its function within the greater sociolinguistic theory of SFL will be examined, and then the concept will be directly applied. The study concludes with a unique contribution demonstrating how these cohesive chains are then unified via choices in verbal aspect as the grammar that not only solidifies semantic continuity among those chains, but contours the discourse using a scheme of markedness that signals the prioritization of its message. The hope of this study is to reinforce the recent paradigm shift of biblical research utilizing modern linguistic paradigms as tools to transform biblical interpretation and exegesis into a rigorously discourse-centered linguistic methodology.

The paper deals with a number of characteristics of the secondary imperfectivation of po-perfectives in Russian. The study is based on the analysis of the level of imperfectivability of Russian perfective verbs with the prefix po- compared to a number of other prefixed perfective verb groups (e. g. the verbs with such perfectivizing prefixes as na-, za-, etc.) according to the Dictionary of Russian Language, the Russian National Corpus and the Russian-language Internet (Runet). It is shown that the discussed perfective verb group is specific as a whole as well as with respect to its subgroups, i. e., deperfective perfective verbs and morphologically marked Aktionsarten. Po-perfectives demonstrate a low average imperfectivability in comparison to corresponding figures for other prefixed verb groups. For the subgroup of deperfective (formed from perfective stems) verbs the level of imperfectivability is also unusually low. The delimitative Aktionsart shows a higher imperfectivability than other morphologically marked Aktionsarten do. Possible explanations for the peculiarities of imperfectivability of po-perfectives rather confirm than contradict the hypothesis about the regularity of the secondary imperfectivation in Russian

Expressions with an aspectual variant of a light verb, e.g. take on debt vs. have debt, are frequent in texts but often difficult to classify between verbal idioms, light verb constructions or compositional phrases. We investigate the properties of such expressions with a disputed membership and propose a selection of features that determine more satisfactory boundaries between the three categories in this zone, assigning the expressions to one of them.

Problemy analizy konfrontatywnej dwóch języków (np. polskiego i węgierskiego) mogą powstać nie tylko z powodu różnic genealogicznych czy typologicznych. W przypadku porównania języka polskiego z węgierskim głównym źródlem problemów jest fakt, że w języku węgierskim, w przeciwieństwie do polskiego, aspektualność nie ma jądra morfologicznego opartego na opozycji par aspektowych.

The present paper focuses on Polish verbal aspect and on the Russian equivalents of aspectual forms in Polish. The author enumerates and discusses the means by the help of which Polish aspectual meanings can be rendered in modern Russian. While the main stress will be placed on iterativity, the paper also deals with the complex issue of the biaspectual verbs in Polish. The paper ends with the suggestion that a series of further articles on biaspectuality and iterativity of the Polish verb seem to be necessary.

In Modern Italian the syntagm «noun + da + infinitive» displays different syntactic features compared to Old Italian. After the subject has been introduced (§1), we first take into account some grammatical issues related to «da + inf.», namely: i) syntactic category; ii) verbal aspect; iii) voice (§2). After that, we focus on the description and explanation of the diachronic development concerning phrases like acqua da innaffiare gli orti, macchina da scrivere and so forth (§3).

Što je što u aspektologiji U radu se raspravlja o terminološkim nedosljednostima i razilaženjima u aspektologiji koje su jedna od većih prepreka razumijevanju aspektološke problematike. Definicije su aspekta brojne, polaze iz različitih jezikoslovnih tradicija, temelje se na različitim teorijskim modelima, a ovise i o proučavanome jeziku, tj. jezicima. Kao posljedica toga aspektom se nazivaju različite više ili manje slične jezične pojave. Terminološka je zbrka posebno uočljiva uspoređuju li se jezici iz različitih jezičnih porodica. U članku se nastoji prikazati različitost uporabe naziva aspekt u jezikoslovnoj literaturi, ali i nekoliko njemu srodnih naziva. Također se predlažu aspektološki nazivi i njihove definicije čijom bi se uporabom dobilo na jasnoći i jednoznačnosti.

В статье рассматривается функционирование перфективного имперфекта и масштабы его использования. Перфективный имперфект употреблялся прежде всего в повествовании о хабитуальных ситуациях, когда произошедшие события принимали ритуализированный характер или шли заведенным порядком. Он обозначал главным образом кратно-законченные действия в прошлом, хотя не исклю-чался и дистрибутивный компонент его семантики. Приводятся доказательства далеко не единичного использования перфективного имперфекта в старославянском языке. Эти факты позволяют по-новому взглянуть на эволюцию перфективного имперфекта, поскольку считалось, что он не имел праславянского происхождения. Появление перфективного имперфекта обусловлено развитием категории вида у презентных основ, с которыми имперфект коррелировал, в праславянском языке. Ключевые слова: глагольный вид, древнерусский язык, кратность, памятники письменности, перфективный имперфект, праславянская реконструкция, старославянский язык The article deals with the functioning of Perfective Imperfect and the dimensions of its usage. Perfective Imperfect was mainly used in habitual situations, when the events acquired a ritualized character or had an established order. It denoted mainly a multiplicity of completed actions in the past, though the distribu-tive component of its semantics was completely not excluded. The paper presents some evidence of quite a widespread usage of Perfective Imperfect in Old Church Slavonic. These facts help us to have a fresh look at the evolution of Perfective Imperfect, as it has been considered before that Perfective Imperfect didn't have a Proto-Slavic origin. The appearance of Perfective Imperfect is determined by the development of aspect as a category in the Present tense stems, with which the Imperfect correlated, in Proto-Slavic.

The aim of this paper is to examine the existence and to analyze the voice semantics of the medio-passive forms in a corpus of unaccusative-causative ambitransitives (unergatives). The verbs under study are divided in seven groups according to the existence of medio-passive forms and their semantics.

Questo studio vuole offrire un'opportunità di riflessione interlinguistica sull'espressione dell'approssimazione tra spagnolo e italiano a partire dalle due perifrasi spagnole venir siendo e venir a ser. Queste due perifrasi, infatti, sono tipicamente utilizzate dagli ispanofoni per esprimere appros-simazione, la quale, a seconda del contesto, può essere di ordine quantitativo o tradursi in relativizza-zione-eufemizzazione o ancora in espressione di dubbio rispetto a quanto il parlante afferma. In questo studio, si analizzano innanzitutto i punti in comune e le divergenze che caratterizzano le diverse sfuma-ture di approssimazione-spesso talmente sottili da generare dubbi presso gli stessi ispanofoni-che possono veicolare venir siendo e venir a ser; si passa poi a un'analisi di tipo contrastivo tra spagnolo e italiano che mostrerà l'indisponibilità di perifrasi italiane corrispondenti a venir siendo e venir a ser in termini di forma e di espressione della valenza modale approssimativa. Infine, tramite un test ad hoc sottoposto a un gruppo di studenti di spagnolo italofoni, si rifletterà sia sul grado di trasparenza interpretativa che presentano per loro le due perifrasi spagnole in questione-a partire da cinque diversi contesti d'uso proposti-sia sulle soluzioni linguistiche che offrirebbero gli informanti per renderle nella loro lingua madre. Parole chiave: perifrasi; modalità approssimativa; studio contrastivo; spagnolo; italiano.

[en] Expression of approximation between Spanish and Italian: the instance of venir siendo and venir a ser Abstract. This research aims to provide an interlinguistic in-depth analysis on the expression of approximation comparing Spanish and Italian constructions starting from two Spanish periphrases: venir siendo and venir a ser. In fact, such periphrastic structures are typically used by Spanish-speakers to express approximation and, based on its context, approximation can be quantitative or conveyed through relativization / euphemism, or by expressing doubt about what the speaker is stating. Firstly, the study focuses on the common and divergent features which distinguish the different nuances of approximation often so subtle they may lead to confusion even among Spanish-speakers-when using venir siendo and venir a ser. Secondly, a contrastive analysis between Spanish and Italian shows the lack of Italian periphrases which are equivalent to venir siendo and venir a ser as to form and expression of the approximate modal value. Finally, a specifically-designed test-submitted to Italian speaking students learning Spanish-reveals the level of interpretative transparency that the two Spanish periphrases allow in five different contexts; through this test, informants also had the possibility to give linguistic solutions to translate the two Spanish periphrases into their native language.

The present paper aims at clarifying the category of aspect and of aspectuality, a universal linguistic supercategory, and shows the interface of aspectuality and semiotics. Aspect is defined here as information about the course of an action. This information can be expressed by various devices of language. However, the term aspect is polysemous. In the Slavic and Semitic languages it means making difference between imperfectivity and perfectivity; i.e. whether an action is described as completed; or, on the contrary, as being in progress (in other words: whether an action is shown from outside as an indivisible whole or from inside as an ongoing process). Furthermore, aspect is also used in a broader sense, e.g. for phenomena like the progressive form in English or the imparfait in French. The basic meaning of these two grammatical categories is that an action was/is in progress, it was/is not completed. All the three branches of semiotics play an important role in aspectology. Besides semantics being crucial to the present-day aspectual research, syntax and recently pragmatics become more and more relevant.
In Hungarian: Jelen munkánk átfogó képet vázol fel az aspektusról és a nála tágabb, rugalmasabb aspektualitás univerzális nyelvi szuperkategóriájáról, rámutatva egyben azokra a pontokra is, amelyek az aspektualitást és a szemiotikát összekötik. Az aspektus általánosan úgy definiálható, mint a megnyilatkozásban egy cselekvés/történés lefolyására vonatkozó információ, amely különböző nyelvi eszközökkel fejeződik ki. Az aspektus kifejezés azonban nem egyértelmű. A szlavisztikában és a szemitológiában a befejezettség és a folyamatosság közötti disztinkciót jelenti, amely abban áll, hogy egy eseményt befejezettként vagy folyamatosként (tehát kívülről, mint osztatlan egészet, vagy belülről, mint folyamatban lévőt) írnak-e le. Tágabb értelemben az aspektus szó olyan nyelvtani jelenségekre is használatos, mint az angol progresszív vagy a francia imparfait. Ez a két grammatikai kategória alapjelentését tekintve azt fejezi ki, hogy egy esemény még folyamatban van, még nem befejezett. Az aspektológiában a szemiotika mindhárom diszciplínájának fontos szerepe van. Az aspektuskutatásban a kardinális szemantika mellett a szintaxis, és újabban a pragmatika is egyre meghatározóbbá válik.

Uwagi sformulowane w niniejszym artykule dotycz4 osób z zaawanso\\,ana znajomo §ci4 jezyka.Ich poziom odpowiada mniej wigcej stopniowi opanowania jq4"ka przez studentów polonistyki. Mówi4ry albo pisz4ry na takim poziomie w danym jea_'ku popetniajq tylko blqdy ,,níeznaczne". W ramach niniejszej pracy nie ma miejsca na ocenE skuteczno §ci nauczania aspektu. Nie jest to równie2 nasrym zadaniem. Obserwacje wykazuj4, 2e blqdów aspektowych popelnia siq znaczne wiqcej (zaczynaj4c od mniejszych, a2 do powoduj4cych powa2ne nieporozumienia) ni2 innych : 92-1,0l, Sikorski 1980 190-192),

В статье приводятся некоторые наблюдения над поведением глаголов со значениями ‘есть' и ‘пить' в русском языке. Рассматриваются особенности, отличающие данные глаголы от прототипических переходных глаголов: возможность употребления без прямого дополнения и способность к специфической для русского языка сатуративной деривации с циркумфиксом на-….-ся. Проводится количественный анализ способности образованных от есть и пить глаголов СВ к непереходному употреблению и выражению делимитативного/комплетивного значения. Для переходных употреблений глаголов СВ рассматриваются предпочтительные способы падежного маркирования объекта.

The paper deals with the verbs meaning ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in Russian. These verbs show certain properties which characterize them as different from the prototypical transitive verbs: they can be used both transitively and intransitively and, like intransitive verbs, they can undergo “saturative” derivation with na-…-s’a. A quantitative analysis is provided for the ability of Russian perfective verbs of eating and drinking to be used without an overt object and to express delimitative and completive meanings. For transitive uses of the perfective verbs, preferences in object marking are also discussed.

Dans la littérature consacrée au passé composé du français apparaît nette une tendance à accorder au passé composé selon les cas, une valeur d’accompli de présent ou une valeur d’antériorité, voire de temps du passé. Le but de la présente communication est d’essayer de démontrer que le pc n’est pas une forme qui sert à situer un procès dans le passé. De plus, le pc n’a pas une valeur temporelle ou aspectuelle, selon les cas. En revanche, tous ses emplois peuvent être expliqués de manière univoque : l’opération sous-jacente dans tous les cas est l’aoristicité.

Expressions with an aspectual variant of a light verb, e.g. ‘take on debt’ vs. ‘have debt’, are frequent in texts but often difficult to classify between verbal idioms, light verb constructions or compositional phrases. We investigate the properties of such expressions with a disputed membership and propose a selection of features that determine more satisfactory boundaries between the three categories in this zone, assigning the expressions to one of them.

The contrast between perfectivity/imperfectivity is realized across languages in two different ways: verbal aspect (henceforward VA), as in the Slavic languages among others; compositional aspect (henceforward CA), as in the Germanic languages among others. VA is directly encoded by the verb. In CA, the articles (definite/indefinite/zero) mark temporal boundedness/nonboundedness on situation-participants NPs which is then mapped onto the verb. Though peripherally, CA is also realized in languages with VA systems such as Bulgarian and Russian. Russian lacks articles; Bulgarian has a definite article only. The mapping of temporal features between referents of nominals and verbs is demonstrated. The signaling of perfectivity in CA terms prototypically
takes place with biaspectual verbs or when imperfectivity is so weak that it fails to stand its ground in specific conditions – the verb can then be labeled biaspectual instead of imperfective. Biaspectuality in Bulgarian is often disambiguated through the contrast between definite vs zero article. Biaspectuality disambiguation in Russian is more complex. Nominals again play a role, despite the absence of articles, through their lexical meanings – capable of influencing aspectual values, and the impact of situation-participant NPs again crucially determines whether a biaspectual verb signals perfectivity or imperfectivity.