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. Lingu ...

, the lexical aspect or Aktionsart (, plural ''Aktionsarten'' ) of a

verb 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 descr ...

is part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

. 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 linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded Boundedness or bounded may refe ...

in that it is an inherent semantic property of a predicate, while grammatical aspect is a

syntactic In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

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 classified verbs into four categories on whether they express "activity", "accomplishment", "achievement" or "state". Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from achievements and states in that the first two allow the use of

continuous and progressive aspects The continuous and progressive aspects ( abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects. In the grammars of many ...

. Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from each other by boundedness. Activities do not have a terminal point (a point before which the activity has taken place and after which cannot continue: "John drew a circle"), but accomplishments have one. Of achievements and states, achievements are instantaneous, but states are durative. Achievements and accomplishments are distinguished from one another in that achievements take place immediately (such as in "recognise" or "find"), but accomplishments approach an endpoint incrementally (as in "paint a picture" or "build a house").

Comrie's classification

In his discussion of lexical aspect, Bernard Comrie included the category semelfactive or punctual events such as "sneeze". His divisions of the categories were as follows: states, activities, and accomplishments are durative, but semelfactives and achievements are punctual. Of the durative verbs, states are unique as they involve no change, and activities are atelic (that is, have no "terminal point") whereas accomplishments are telic. Of the punctual verbs, semelfactives are atelic, and achievements are telic. The following table shows examples of lexical aspect in English that involve change (an example of a state is 'know').

Moens and Steedman's classification

Another classification is proposed by Moens and Steedman, based on the idea of the event nucleus

Syntactic analyses of event structure

Aspectual classes can be analyzed as differing in their event structure, and this has led to the development of syntactic analyses of event structure, with each aspectual class treated as having a distinct syntactic structure.

References