Re: THEORY: Aspect terminology (long)

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.

Reply