Re: Aspect Question

Jim Grossman wrote:

> What's the grammatical term for an aspect that conveys the idea of action
> occuring starting at some point and continuing indefinitely.  In other
> words, what's the term for the "from then on & from now on" aspect?
Something that is similar to this are the phasal adverbs, which
doesn't necessarily have to be adverbs (though they are in English).
These are called "inchoative", "continuative", "discontinuative" and
"continuative negative".

Inchoative refers to a positive state having come into existence.
In English: 'already'

Continuative refers to the continuation of a positive state.
In English: 'still'

Discontinuative refers to the discontinuation of a positive state.
In English: 'no longer, no more'

Continuative negative refers to the continuation of a negative state.
In English: 'not yet'

Semantically it helps to think of these in terms of "+" and "-".
Continuative, for instance, is + + since it happened then and
it happens now (still). Discontinuative is + - since it happened
then, but not now (no longer). Inchoative would be - + (not then,
but now) and Continuative negative would be - - (not then and
not now, but perhaps in the future).

These four "phasals" can be expressed as an adverb, a verb, an
auxilliary verb, a particle or being grammaticalized altogether.
(The last one is common in Bantu languages, and occurs in Lezgian
and in some northern Swedish dialects as well, actually). It seems
extremely unusual to have all of these four grammaticalized, but
I'm sure it exists somewhere.

Hmm. I really oughta do something with this in Piata.

Daniel Andreasson

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