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Title:
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A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect
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Author:
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Mari Olsen
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Homepage:
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http://umiacs.umd.edu/~molsen
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Degree Awarded:
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Northwestern University
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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1994
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Pragmatics
Semantics
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Subject Language(s):
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English
Greek, Ancient
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Director(s):
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Beth Levin
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Abstract:
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This work studies two related phenomena in human language: the ability of verbs and other lexical items to describe how a situation (event or state) develops or holds in time (lexical aspect) and the view some verbal auxiliaries and affixes present of the development or result of situations at a given time (grammatical aspect). Through this investigation I reveal a formal situation structure represented by aspectual phenomena, a structure to which other linguistic elements refer, particularly tense.
I examine data in a variety of languages from the literature, and provide detailed analyses of English and Koine Greek. I take particular care to distinguish between aspect semantics and cancellable pragmatic implicatures associated with aspect forms. The semantic-pragmatic distinction provides a tool for determining what properties need to be accounted for in the semantic representation and what may be adduced as evidence for these properties. In particular, I show that oppositions generally assumed to be semantically equipollent (+/-) are semantically privative (+/unmarked), with unmarked forms interpreted in accordance with pragmatic principles.
Lexical aspect semantics is represented by the privative features [+telic], [+dynamic], and [+durative]. These features define the Event Time (ET) as a situation structure consisting of a nucleus and a coda. Grammatical aspect oppositions, also represented privatively, crucially interact with this structure: [+imperfective] views situations intersecting a Reference Time (RT) at the nucleus, and [+perfective] views them at the coda. The conception of grammatical aspect as a view of the ET-RT intersection allows the representation of tense to be limited to a relation between a RT and the deictic center (C). Complex temporal phenomena--'perfect' and 'extended' tenses--are shown to be interactions between grammatical aspect and tense. The privative analysis allows aspect semantics to be built up monotonically--from the lexical aspect ET features, the grammatical aspect view of the ET, and tense. The semantics restricts pragmatic interpretation in principled ways, based on marked and marked features.
Chapter 1 introduces theoretical issues and assumptions. Chapters 2-4 outline the semantic structure of lexical aspect, grammatical aspect, and tense, respectively. Chapters 5-6 apply the analysis to the aspect and tense systems of English and New Testament Koine Greek.
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