Re: [tied] Re: Ablaut, hi-conjugation, stress alternation, etc

From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 46738
Date: 2006-12-23

 
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 6:18 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Ablaut, hi-conjugation, stress alternation, etc

<snip> 

The problem with the perfective/imperfec tive and punctual/durative
distinctions in linguistics is the several ways we can choose to
"punctualize" an act that stretches over some time. Let's look at
the chess game world I've used as an example earlier, and the set
of glosses we need to describe a chess match, eg for the purposes
of making a database consisting of matches, described as a sequence
of moves and/or board states (this is the task of database designers;
this is why Sowa in "Conceptual Structures" likens them to
philosopher kings). We need one eventive, born-punctual verb: 'move'.
Now this does not mean that we can't in some system use 'move' as
a durative verb, as in 'is moving', but this is *not* within the
'universe of discourse' of chess matches (but possibly of a
sub-universe dealing with malfunctions of a mechanical chess player
arm). The point here is: punctuality of a verb is not an aspect of
the actual situation designated by a sentence in which the verb
occurs, but of the universe of discourse we have chosen. In this
case we have chosen something that in its actual performance (moving a
chess piece) is sequential, complex and durative, and made it punctual
by ignoring details of its execution.
So this is one way of making a born-punctual, or an ambiguous verb
punctual. But there is another way, which is for a durative verb to
make it designate the state transition to the state it otherwise
designates, ie 'begin to write', also called inceptive. The problem is
that some Russian imperfective/ perfective pairs, as usually quoted,
are actually state/inceptive pairs, eg. znat'/uznat' (know/get to
know), videt'/uvidet' (see, catch sight of).

Torsten

***

It certainly does not surprise me that there can be honest disagreements about aspect and Aktionsart since our ideas about them are so subjectively tied to our personal understandings of the languages we speak.

Nonetheless, I really believe that realistic definitions can be formulated.

The major problem in this is that imperfective/perfective is indicated in many different ways.

As an example:

"He reads the Bible every night."

Does this mean that he reads some passages from the Bible or reads the entire Bible?

If we wish to indicate the perfective latter (however unlikely it may be), we might say:

"He reads through the Bible every night."

If we wish to make clear the imperfective former, we might say:

"He reads in the Bible every night".

In my opinion, this tells us two things:

1) that Germanic languages also have methods of indicating imperfective/perfective, fully comparable with Slavic, for qualifying verbal ideas; and

2) that PIE probably did _not_ have the expression of this distinction since there are so many variant ways of expressing it in the derived languages.

On the other hand, as I have written, I believe the durative/punctual (*bhere-/*bher-) opposition was the bedrock of PIE verbal inflection.

In my opinion, there is no necessary connection between perfective and punctual whatever we may find in any given language or language group.

Perfective expresses a logical goal of an activity.

Punctual expresses some point in time within the duration of the activity (inceptive/completive).

As an example:

"He is reading through the Bible for the fifth time."

This is clearly perfective since it contemplates a logical and definite cessation of the activity; it is also unquestionably durative.

"He begins to read in the Bible."

This is clearly imperfective since no logical or definite cessation of the activity is suggested; it is also unquestionably punctual.

 

Patrick

***