|
Semelfactive
In linguistics, semelfactive is a class of aktionsart or lexical aspect (verb aspects that reflect the temporal flow of the denoted event, lexically incorporated into the verb's root itself rather than grammatically expressed by inflections or auxiliary verbs). The event represented by a semelfactive verb is punctual (instantaneous, taking just a moment), perfective (treated as a complete action with no explicit internal temporal structure), and atelic (not having a goal). Semelfactive verbs include "blink", "sneeze", and "knock". The idea of semelfactive as a category of lexical aspect was first posited by Bernard Comrie in addition to the more commonly known categories such as verbs of Activity, Accomplishment, Achievement, and State. The term's use in the realm of grammatical aspect is analogous in meaning to "iterative Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexical Aspect
In linguistics, the lexical aspect or Aktionsart (, plural ''Aktionsarten'' ) of a verb is part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. For example, the English verbs ''arrive'' and ''run'' differ in their lexical aspect since the former describes an event which has a natural endpoint while the latter does not. Lexical aspect differs from grammatical aspect in that it is an inherent semantic property of a predicate, while grammatical aspect is a syntactic or morphological property. Although lexical aspect need not be marked morphologically, it has downstream grammatical effects, for instance that ''arrive'' can be modified by "in an hour" while ''believe'' cannot. Theories of aspectual class Although all theories of lexical aspect recognize that verbs divide into different classes, the details of the classification differ. An early attempt by Vendler recognized four classes, which has been modified several times. Vendler's classification Zeno Vendler c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexical Aspect
In linguistics, the lexical aspect or Aktionsart (, plural ''Aktionsarten'' ) of a verb is part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. For example, the English verbs ''arrive'' and ''run'' differ in their lexical aspect since the former describes an event which has a natural endpoint while the latter does not. Lexical aspect differs from grammatical aspect in that it is an inherent semantic property of a predicate, while grammatical aspect is a syntactic or morphological property. Although lexical aspect need not be marked morphologically, it has downstream grammatical effects, for instance that ''arrive'' can be modified by "in an hour" while ''believe'' cannot. Theories of aspectual class Although all theories of lexical aspect recognize that verbs divide into different classes, the details of the classification differ. An early attempt by Vendler recognized four classes, which has been modified several times. Vendler's classification Zeno Vendler c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how social con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfective Aspect
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing, continuous, or habitual actions). The term ''perfective'' should be distinguished from ''perfect'' (see below). The distinction between perfective and imperfective is more important in some languages than others. In Slavic languages, it is central to the verb system. In other languages such as German, the same form such as ''ich ging'' ("I went", "I was going") can be used perfectively or imperfectively without grammatical distinction. In other languages such as Latin, the distinction between perfective and imperfective is made only in the past tense (e.g., Latin ''veni'' "I came" vs. ''veniebam'' "I was coming", "I used to come"). However, perfective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telicity
In linguistics, telicity (; ) is the property of a verb or verb phrase that presents an action or event as having a specific endpoint. A verb or verb phrase with this property is said to be ''telic''; if the situation it describes is ''not'' heading for any particular endpoint, it is said to be ''atelic''. Testing for telicity in English One common way to gauge whether an English verb phrase is telic is to see whether such a phrase as ''in an hour'', in the sense of "within an hour", (known as a ''time-frame adverbial'') can be applied to it. Conversely, a common way to gauge whether the phrase is atelic is to see whether such a phrase as ''for an hour'' (a ''time-span adverbial'') can be applied to it. This can be called the ''time-span/time-frame test''. According to this test, the verb phrase ''built a house'' is telic, whereas the minimally different ''built houses'' is atelic: : Fine: "John built a house in a month." : Bad: *"John built a house for a month." :: → ''buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Comrie
Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages. Early life and education Comrie was born in Sunderland, England on 23 May 1947. He earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics from the University of Cambridge, where he also taught Russian and Linguistics until he moved to the Linguistics Department of the University of Southern California. Academic career For 17 years he was professor at and director of the former Department of Linguistics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, combined with a post as Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he returned full-time from 1 June 2015. He has also taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. Personal life He married ling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iterative Aspect
In linguistics, the iterative aspect (abbreviated ), also called "semelfactive", "event-internal pluractionality", or "multiplicative", is a grammatical aspect that expresses the repetition of an event observable on one single occasion, as in 'he knocked on the door', 'he coughed', 'she is drumming', etc. It is not to be confused with frequentative aspect and habitual aspect In linguistics, the aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in a given action, event, or state. As its name suggests, the habitual aspect (abbreviated ), not to be confused with iterative aspect ..., both of which signal repetition over more than one occasion. Other authorsp236 in S.C. Dik. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar, part I The Structure of the Clause. Berlin: Mouton. have reserved the term "semelfactive" for this mono-occasional repetition, and defined iterative aspect as denoting 'several' repetitions over more than one occasion, as opposed t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verb Types
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle ''to'', is the infinitive. In many languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense, aspect, mood, and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender or number of some of its arguments, such as its subject, or object. Verbs have tenses: present, to indicate that an action is being carried out; past, to indicate that an action has been done; future, to indicate that an action will be done. For some examples: * I ''washed'' the car yesterday. * The dog ''ate'' my homework. * John ''studies'' English and French. * Lucy ''enjoys'' listening to music. *Barack Obama ''became'' the President of the United States in 2009. ''(occurrence)'' *Mike Trout ''is'' a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Aspects
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formulate rules that define well-formed, grammatical, sentences. These rules of grammaticality also provide explanations of ill-formed, ungrammatical sentences. In theoretical linguistics, a speaker's judgement on the well-formedness of a linguistic 'string'—called a grammaticality judgement—is based on whether the sentence is interpreted in accordance with the rules and constraints of the relevant grammar. If the rules and constraints of the particular lect are followed, then the sentence is judged to be grammatical. In contrast, an ungrammatical sentence is one that violates the rules of the given language variety. Linguists use grammaticality judgements to investigate the syntactic structure of sentences. Generative linguists are la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
