Re: unmarked tense/aspect

In a message dated 3/5/2004 1:21:58 AM Eastern Standard Time,
estel_telcontar@YAHOO.CA writes:

>Yes, there is a distinction between
>perfect and perfective, though I sometimes have difficulty remembering
>which is which.
>One of them - perfective, I think - looks at an event as a single point
>in time, while its counterpart, probably imperfective, looks at the
>event as a space of time... or something like that.
>The other one - perfect, I think -  looks at an event as having
>continuing relevance... or something like that.
That's the same distinction Bernard Comrie makes between "perfect" and
"perfective" in his book _Aspect_.  It is highly unfortunate that the word "perfect"
is often used for both meanings, leading to confusion.  (For Comrie, by the
way, the opposite of "perfective" is "imperfective" and the opposite of
"perfect" is "non-perfect".)

Doug