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Re: THEORY: Aspect terminology (long)

From:Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>
Date:Friday, December 12, 2008, 7:58
On Dec 11, 2008, at 10:21 PM, Alex Fink wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:38:40 -0600, Eric Christopherson > <rakko@...> > wrote: > >> Hi, all. The other night I had a huge brainstorm which resulted, the >> next day, in me creating a chart of aspects for use in my Dhaqran. It >> all seemed so clear and good at the time, but soon the novelty wore >> off and I began to have doubts about it. >> >> Part of the discomfort has to do with four aspects: perfective, >> perfect, and two "aorists". Here is what I have so far: >> >> Perfective - marks an event as completed >> Perfect (or as I initially called it "effective") - marks an event as >> completed AND leaving behind a state of relevance >> Stative aorist or gnomic aorist - used for timeless truths >> Eventive aorist or "pure eventive" - used to describe events pure and >> simple, without considering their end points >> >> Now, I'm not sure what to actually call my "perfective". > > Perhaps I miss something, but does a verbal form referring to > "completed > events" not bring in tense meanings as well? I'd call it a past > perfective.
Well, a perfective (or a perfect, for that matter) could have reference to any time. A "past perfective" to me would be something like "When I saw Twilight, I had already read the book". (I think some grammarians do talk about that kind of thing as involving a tense relative to another tense; see the terms "past in the past", "past in the future", etc.)
> I've seen single-word names deployed for the past perfective, in > case you > want one (no surprise, it's a common category, at least in IE, and our > terminology grew up describing IE): "preterite", but I've also seen > that > used for an aspect-unspecified past; and "aorist", which I'm sure > you'll > _love_ as a suggestion.
I do like "aorist", but as I said it has somewhat contradictory (yet also somewhat congruent) meanings.
> >> I have seen >> various definitions of perfective aspect as referring to a >> *completed* event, but I've also seen definitions of it as referring >> to a *complete* event, i.e. an event without reference to its end >> state or any internal structure. For some reason I seem to believe >> that the "complete" reading is the one more popular in linguistics >> per se, whereas the "completed" reading is more common in >> conlanging... is that true? > > I think I've probably seen both definitions and entirely glossed > over the > difference, taking "completed actions" as something like 'actions > which will > be completed from our temporally-agnostic view', so I couldn't tell > you > which was where. > >> As for perfect, I like the name "effective" since it's parallel to >> "perfective", but I don't know that it's precedented. > > I've never heard of an "effective".
It's my own coinage :)
> >> I've also seen something called a resultive in Saanich grammar*, so I >> thought of using that name, but it doesn't seem to be common (on the >> other hand, I see the conlang 'Yemls uses it!) > > When I need a name for this aspect I go for "perfect of result". > I'm not > sure I like the word "resultive", for it's too close to > "resultative" which > already has a meaning.
Yeah. And I see SIL (following Comrie) calls it that.
> >> * http://www.cas.unt.edu/~montler/Saanich/Outline/23.htm#2.3.6. > > Neat, I should take a look at that grammar. (And thank Ghu it > doesn't use > the official all-caps Saanich orthography! That thing is just > brutal on the > synaesthetic ears.)
It's a great language, and I think the grammar is nicely done. I've seen the all-caps orthography and it is pretty odd, although I kind of like it in an exotic sort of way. I was wondering just the other day *why* they chose to do it in all caps, though.
> > Alex
Aidan wrote:
> Better terms for these, IMHO: > > Instead of Perfective - Completive. > Instead of Perfect/Effective - Resultative. > Instead of Stative/Gnomic Aorist - Gnomic or Stative (esp. if "it > is red" would take this aspect).
I'm just not sure yet if I will differentiate things like "The sky is blue" (=always, by its very nature) and "The ball is blue" (now, incidentally). Gnomic would only work for the first one. I'll have to think about it.
> Instead of Eventive Aorist - Aorist. >
Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

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R A Brown <ray@...>