One of the most important linguistic processes the speaker is obligatorily involved in is perfectivization. Any verbal process can be presented as completed, or perfective, or as incompleted, imperfective. Both completed and incompleted processes can be aspectually pure and non-pure. Aspectually pure processes are semantically simple since they have the feature [Perfective] only, while aspectually non-pure processes, besides having the feature [Perfective], have additional semantic features. The present study is an attempt to examine perfective processes in Russian and English with a view to describing and comparing the means of perfectivization used in the said languages. The analysis of the evidence has revealed that the process of perfectivization was realized in the language using different linguistic means: in Russian it was typically realized by the use of perfectivizing morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) while in English it was typically realized by the appropriate co- text (complementation, adverbial particles) and the use of analytic verb structures. The formal expression of perfectivity in Russian was determined to a considerable extent by the type of perfective processes as well as by the type of process. As language is an economic system, some perfectivizing prefixes overlapped: they were used with both types of perfective process - general and specific. As for English, the means of perfectivization presented a mixed bag: English mostly resorted to... [to full text] / Perfektyvizacija yra vienas svarbiausiųjų lingvistinių procesų: kalbantysis turi pasakyti adresatui, kokį procesą jis turi galvojė: baigtinį (t.y. perfektinį) ar nebaigtinį(t.y.neperfektinį). Abu procesai svarbūs komunikacijos procese; jie sudaro dialektinę vienybę. Tačiau lingvistiniu požiūriu svarbesnis ir įdomesnis yra baigtinis procesas. Šiame magistriniame darbe jam ir skiriamas dėmesys: nagrinėjamos perfektyvizacijos priemonės rusų ir anglų kalbose. Darbą sudaro įvadas, teorinė, praktinė dalis, išvados, santrauka lietuvių kalba ir panaudotos literatūros sąrašas. Įvade aptariami darbo tikslai, teorinė reikšmė, metodai. Teorinėje dalyje bandoma parodyti, kaip veiksmažodžio semantika veikia jo veikslines ypatybes. Išskiriami keturi proceso tipai: atlikimo ( angl. „accomplishments“), pasiekimo (angl. „ achievements“), veikimo (angl. „ activities“) ir būsenos ( angl. „ activities“). Nors darbas skirtas perfektyvizacijos procesams rusų ir anglų kalbose, daugiau dėmesio skiriama anglų kalbos procesų perfektyvizacijai, t.y.kaip perfektinė reikšmė realizuojama anglų kalboje. Tokią tyrimo kryptį lėmė pati tyrimo medžiga: darbe daugiausia nagrinėjami rusų kalbos perfektiniai veiksmažodžiai, rinkti iš Levo Tolstojaus romano „ Ana Karenina“ ir jų ekvivalentai angliškame šio romano vertime. Tyrimo medžiagos analizė parodė, kad gretinamos kalbos , kaip ir reikėjo tikėtis, naudoja skirtingus perfektyvizacijos būdus: rusų kalba , su nedidelemis išimtimis, naudojo morfologines... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

In the discussion of the relationship between aspect and Aktionsart, it is generally agreed that aspect is a feature of the tense-form and Aktionsart depends on tense-form together with other clausal and contextual features such as lexical meaning and adjuncts used with the verb. Recent works have tried to find predictable patterns of meaning that emerge when a certain set of clausal factors and lexical features combine with one of the aspects. Most of these works are theoretical in nature and heavily rely on Zeno Vendler's quadripartition of lexical classes as part of their theory. These works are confined to the Greek of the New Testament, and often produce different and even incompatible results. This study presents an empirical approach to verify these results. Following previous works on corpus linguistics to analyze Hellenistic Greek, this study attempts to look for empirical evidence regarding what role lexical semantics and other contextual factors contribute to the choice of aspect. Using a body of text that forms a representative sample of Hellenistic text, the goal is to investigate distribution of tense-forms and lexis in the literature. Lexis are tested in groups according to Vendler's classes and also individually, and other contextual factors will also be considered. To narrow down this study to a manageable scope, the semantic feature of telicity is chosen for examination. This feature is foundational in the formulation of Vendler's taxonomy and is often mentioned with or even conflated with the perfective aspect. It has not been adequately demonstrated whether or not aspectual choices in Koine Greek are dependent on Vendler's telicity distinction. It is argued that, based on empirical evidence, telicity and perfectivity are not related in a systematic manner in Koine Greek. As a corollary, Atkionsart should be considered as an interpretive category, meaning that the value cannot be systematized in a linguistic analysis but can only be determined in the process of interpretation. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The thesis deals with aspectuality in Czech and Dutch. The theoretical part covers the most important widely recognized and widespread theoretical approaches to the issue. It also compares to which stream Czech and Dutch linguists tend to and how the phenomenon is discussed in grammar. The main points of the work are aspect and Aktionsart. Both of them have similar semantic features, which are the main criteria for comparison of these two typologically different languages. Both in Czech and Dutch, the perception of aspect and manner of its expression varies. The aim of this work is to bring the Czech user of Dutch options for how Czech aspectual meanings may be expressed in Dutch. The practical part contains, besides an overview of the language means, also the practical analysis of two fictional texts, which supports answering two questions. First, whether the Dutch translation preserves the concept of Czech aspectual opposites and if so, in what ways. Second, whether the Czech interpreter has tendency to enrich Dutch text with aspects or not. key words: aspect, Aktionsart, Dutch, imperfectivity, perfectivity

Orientador: Ruth Elisabeth Vasconcellos Lopes / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Intituto de Estudos da Linguaguem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T08:05:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Casagrande_Sabrina_D.pdf: 5930788 bytes, checksum: 681b80a7db73d90921dc5f1940625516 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Tendo como base o aparato teórico do Programa Minimalista (Chomsky, 2000), o objetivo deste trabalho é analisar as restrições de ocorrência do objeto direto anafórico (ODA) no Português Brasileiro (PB). Mais especificamente, procuramos investigar se a perfectividade do verbo interfere no preenchimento da posição de ODA. Para tanto, testes de julgamento de gramaticalidade foram aplicados off-line a 27 falantes nativos adultos do PB, analisando perfectividade do verbo e traços de animacidade e especificidade do antecedente. Os resultados mostraram que, em alguns casos, a perfectividade parece restringir o preenchimento da posição de ODA em PB, embora não tenha se mostrado categórica. Para analisar se o padrão encontrado nos dados adultos é encontrado nos dados infantis, aplicamos quatro experimentos de produção eliciada e um experimento de imitação eliciada a 70 crianças adquirindo o PB na faixa etária de 2-6 anos. Lopes (2009), observando a aquisição do ODA em dados de produção espontânea, mostrou que há uma mudança na gramática infantil, que inicialmente produz apenas objetos nulos dêiticos e, a partir do momento em que o traço de perfectividade é especificado na gramática da criança, o nulo anafórico passa a ser produzido. Os dados aqui analisados mostram que a gramática infantil passa por uma mudança posterior a essa: deixa de produzir apenas objetos nulos anafóricos (tanto com formas perfectivas quanto com formas imperfectivas do verbo), dando lugar, também, a DPs plenos e pronomes lexicais, que parecem crescer em maior número com formas perfectivas, o que, segundo nossos resultados, indica um caminho em direção à gramática adulta. Ainda, os resultados mostraram, assim como nos dados adultos, que a correlação entre perfectividade e ODA está presente, porém somente em alguns casos. O que é importante destacar é que os mesmos casos em que a correlação entre perfectividade e preenchimento da posição de ODA foram detectados na gramática adulta, também apareceram na gramática infantil. Além disso, evidências translinguísticas mostram que a restrição do objeto ao aspecto não é uma exclusividade do PB, aparecendo em outras línguas (cf. THRIFT (2003) para o holandês, TSIMPLI & PAPADOPOULOU (2006), para o grego), o que parece nos indicar um caminho pelo qual passa a aquisição do objeto nas línguas. Restar-nos-ia observar se este padrão é encontrado em outras línguas e, se assim o for, delinear, de alguma maneira, um possível parâmetro para o preenchimento do objeto / Abstract: Based on the theoretical apparatus of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 2000), this thesis aims to analyze the restrictions on the occurrence of the so called anaphoric direct object (ADO) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). More specifically, we intend to investigate if perfective features in the verb might or might not interfere on the filling up of the ADO position. Thus, grammaticality judgment test have been administer offline to 27 adult native speakers with the intent to analyze perfectiveness in the verb form and animacy features as well as the specificity of the antecedent. The results have revealed that perfectiveness seems to be constraining the filling up of the ADO position in BP, though not categorically. In order to analyze if the pattern found out amidst the adults' data is also observed within the children's data, we have administer four different experiments of elicited production and one experiment of elicited imitation to 70 children acquiring BP between 2 and 6 years old. Lopes (2009), observing the acquisition of the ADO in spontaneous production data has pointed out that there is a change in the child's Grammar, which is supposed to produce only deictic null objects (in the beginning) and to change up being able to produce the null anaphoric as soon as the perfective feature is specified in the grammar. Data such as the ones put to analisys here evidence that the child's Grammar goes through some kind of change that follows this one: the child stops producing only null anaphoric objects (with perfective or imperfective verb forms), giving place to also full DPs and lexical pronouns, which seem increase in number when associated to perfective forms, which, according to our results, indicates a clear way towards the adult grammar. The results also attest, just as observed in the adult data, that the correlation between perfectivity and ADO is present, but only in a few cases. It's important to mention that adult and child's grammar (according to the data) seem to share the correlation between perfectivity and the filling up of the ADO. Besides, cross linguistic evidences show up that the restriction the object sets towards aspect is not found out only in BP, being present in a considerable number of languages (see THRIFT (2003) for Dutch and TSIMPLI & PAPADOPOULOU (2006), for Greek). What seems to indicate the acquisition of the objects seems to trail in languages. We're left the task to check if this pattern can be found in other languages and, if it's the case, to somehow delineate some kind of parameter for the filling up of the object / Doutorado / Linguistica / Doutor em Linguística

(på engelska): This thesis aims to investigate what the verbal aspect as a grammatical verb category entails, how it is formed and expressed in Slavic languages, namely in Czech and Ukrainian. In addition to verbal aspect, aktionsart is also examined. Initially, the focus is on the definition of the most relevant terms, while specific examples of aktionsart and usage of perfective and imperfective aspect are emphasized later in the study. In addition, the various aspectual means available in languages that lack aspect as a grammatical category are analyzed, with Swedish as an example. Special attention is given to phrasal verbs as an aspect marker. Furthermore, the thesis contains a corpus-driven research that focuses on the translation of Czech and Ukrainian perfective verbs into Swedish (27 verbs in total) and aims to see to what extent verbal particles are used when translating perfective aspect. The analysis shows that phrasal verbs are a relatively frequent means to translate perfective aspect, even though there seems to be a high degree of a translator's subjective judgement about whether or not phrasal verbs are appropriate in certain situations. Nevertheless, it is clear that phrasal verbs contribute to a more bounded and thus perfective meaning. The exact number of the results with phrasal...

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der wahrheitsbasierten Bedeutung perfektiver satzeinbettender Prädikate im Polnischen, i.e. mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen Aspekt und Wahrheitsinferenz. Den Kern meiner Dissertation bilden sogenannte ‚reveal-type predicates‘ wie ‘beweisen’, ‘zeigen’ oder ‘offenbaren [dass]’. In Abhängigkeit von deren aspektueller Markierung bringen sie entweder eine maximale (bei perfektiven Verben) oder eine partielle Evidenz (bei imperfektiven Verben) für die Wahrheit einer eingebetteten Proposition mit sich. Nur wenn die Evidenz maximal ist, wird der dass-Satz notwendigerweise als wahr interpretiert. Ich habe gezeigt, dass maximale Evidenz einer totalen Affiziertheit eines nominalen inkrementellen Themas (wie z. B. in ‘einen Schrank bauen.pfv’) entspricht (Maximalität von Evidenz = Maximalität vom Schrank). Somit sind reveal-type predicates inkrementell. Außerdem habe ich eine Akzeptabilitätsstudie mit 51 polnischen MuttersprachlerInnen geplant und durchgeführt, die die Veridikalität des Perfektivs und die Neutralität des Imperfektivs bestätigt hat. Die Interpretation der Ergebnisse wurde um eine Korpusuntersuchung ergänzt. Basierend auf den theoretischen Beobachtungen und den Studienergebnissen habe ich eine einheitliche Analyse für inkrementelle Verben vorgeschlagen, die entweder ein nominales oder ein propositionales Objekt verlangen. Die von mir für das Polnische entdeckten Korrelationen gelten auch für andere slawische (Tschechisch, Russisch) und einige nicht-slawische Sprachen (austronesische Sprachen, Französisch, Ungarisch). / In my dissertation, I investigated a systematic interaction between the perfective aspect of a clause-embedding verb and a truth-oriented interpretation of embedded propositions in Polish. I demonstrated that the so-called reveal-type predicates (‘prove’, ‘reveal’, ‘show [that]’) are in complementary distribution with respect to triggering truth-related meaning of their sentential complements. Whereas perfective variants enforce embedded propositions to be true, imperfective counterparts are almost only compatible with false (or neutral) propositions. I further showed that clause-embedding reveal-type predicates exhibit an incremental structure and can therefore be treated by analogy to verbs that combine with nominal incremental themes. In the former case, we have a gradual creation of a proof, whereas in the latter case, we have a gradual creation of an object like ‘wardrobe’ (maximality of evidence = maximality of a wardrobe). I proposed a novel analysis of incremental theme verbs that combine with either nouns or clauses. According to my analysis, one possible realization of a partial-total affectedness of an incremental theme is a gradual creation of a proof for an embedded proposition. In order to obtain empirical evidence for the (non-)veridicality of (im)perfective reveal-type predicates in Polish, I conducted an acceptability judgement study with 51 Polish native speakers. I further conducted a corpus-based analysis of the frequency of investigated lexemes, which completed the interpretation of results. Apart from Polish, I provided evidence from other Slavic languages (Czech, Russian) and some non-Slavic languages (Austronesian languages, French, Hungarian).

This thesis investigates three different so-called “past tense forms” in Tulu, a Dravidian language spoken in the south-western Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala. Through fieldwork material collected by the author, this thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the usage and functions of the three forms in Tulu. It expands upon previous research, which has acknowledged the forms’ existence but not described their functions or provided examples of their usage. Previous research has also often referred to the forms with contradictory names; for example, one form has been called both “immediate past” by one source (Bhat, 1998:166) and “distant past” by another (Krishnamurti, 2003:334), with little explanation of the choice of these labels. In this thesis, they are called Past1, Past2 and Past3 as they all refer to events that have already happened, but the study shows that the distinction between them is one of aspect and validity of results and not of remoteness in tense. The investigation also shows that the three forms have differentiating and contrasting functions and can, in most cases, not be replaced by the others. Past1 is favoured to express perfectivity, event-focused actions, and consecutiveness. Past2 is used for continuous statives, states resulting from past events and events that have happened at least once, as well as introducing a new topic in a narrative. Past3 refers to both punctual or completed events and states that can hold for some time with other events happening in between, and it is commonly used to mark a situation or result not holding anymore. When events in the past are within the same scope, or an event is elaborated upon, the Past3 is also used, as well as when referring to events completed or started before a time reference in the past. The description of these forms' functions will fill a knowledge gap in the description of Tulu, providing a comprehensive understanding of the tense and aspect system in the language. Furthermore, the analysis and data can advance future Tulu and general typological studies about tense and aspect systems. Tulu has several unique features compared to other Dravidian languages. The so-called past tense forms have been claimed as one of them (Subrahmanyam, 1971; Krishnamurti, 2003). By describing them and including a brief comparison with other Dravidian languages, this thesis contributes to understanding the Dravidian language family. It provides material for the study of language change and the family's genealogy. In addition, the data released with the thesis includes sentences from Tulu and basic vocabulary lists from various Dravidian languages that can likewise be used in historical research of the family.