The main aim of this thesis is to consider some consequences of the relevance theory of Sperber and Wilson (1986) for explaining a number of phenomena relating to verbal aspect. Chapter one introduces some basic notions relating to aspect and illustrates the interaction of aspect and tense and gives an outline of the main tenets of relevance theory. Chapter two considers the aspectual categories (simple-progressive) of English and (perfective-imperfective) of Serbo- Croat in relation to each other, and also in relation to the the classification of verbs according to the situation types they denote. Problems of defining the aspectual categories of these two languages are examined, and the suggestion is put forward that relevance theory provides the framework which makes it possible to maintain a fairly austere semantics of aspectual categories as well as to explain aspectual choice. Chapter three examines the treatment of aspectual categories in terms of subjectivity. It is argued that speakers' intuitions about the aspectual categories being expressive of subjectivity can be explained pragmatically, in terms of the notions of loose use and interpretive use. In Chapter four, I argue that in addition to the feature of completion, the semantics of aspectual categories of both English and Serbo-Croat needs to be characterised in terms of reference to particular events instantiating the property denoted by the predicate. I show how this assumption makes it possible to explain a number of uses of the English progressive. I then proceed to argue that the progressive of English and the perfective of Serbo-Croat differ with regard to completion but that they both point indexically, as it were, to a particular event instantiating the property denoted by the predicate. This assumption is shown to be crucial in explaining aspectual choice in the two languages. Although the data discussed are drawn solely from English and Serbo-Croat, the central ideas presented should carry over to Slavonic languages in general. Chapter five looks at situation type aspect in the light of Sperber and Wilson's (1986) view that conceptual information is stored in three types of entries. It is shown that the difference in the behaviour of verbs which intuitively seems to correlate with dynamicness and stativity, is best explained in terms of a three-way distinction determined by meaning postulate-like rules in the logical entries of concepts for individual verbs. I also give evidence in support of the view that accomplishment VPs fall into two classes depending on whether or not they grammaticalise completion, and I show that the grammaticalisation of completion in some predicates of this type is pragmatically explained.

The objective of this dissertation is to test some major theories on the discourse function of the Greek indicative verb-forms in narrative. Since the publication of Stanley Porter and Buist Fanning’s doctoral dissertations, verbal aspect has been a major area of research among scholars. Although the debate and research concerning the aspect of Greek verbs continues to be at the forefront of Greek grammatical studies, the question that begs to be answered is whether their answers can satisfactorily account for the varied verb-forms throughout the entirety of a historical narrative. This dissertation seeks to answer this question by testing current proposals on the discourse function of Greek indicative verb-forms within the narrative of Judith. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis of the dissertation, surveys the literature related to Greek grammar, and discusses the need to focus on discourse grammar. Chapter 2 surveys the literature related to discourse grammar, provides a methodology, and discusses the rationale for the selection of the book of Judith. Chapter 3 tests the function of the aorist and the imperfect within the book of Judith. Specifically, it tests the proposal—unless intentionally marked, the aorist is used to describe mainline events, it provides the foundation for the narrative, and thus moves it forward. Whereas the imperfect is used with non-events, giving descriptive or background information, rather than moving it forward. Chapter 4 examines the function of the present within the narrative of Judith. Namely, it evaluates Runge’s rejection of Stanley Porter’s claim that the present indicative verb-form is semantically marked for prominence. Chapter 5 observes the function of the perfect within the narrative of Judith. Specifically, it evaluates the thesis—the perfect is used to show the relevance of the action, idea, or situation to the current discourse. Chapter 6 provides a concluding summary of each chapter in this dissertation and suggests areas for fruitful future research.

This dissertation focuses on treatise of an Italian verb and its development from different points of view of various grammarians through comparison of eighteen Italian grammars from 15th until 19th century. It is looking at the verb from three standpoints: morphological, syntactical, and the aspect. Morphological view - it is examining the way of its classification based on individual grammatical categories: occurrence, description, and its contents. Syntactical view - here the issue of choosing the auxiliary verb is observed in compound tenses, the issue of concord and verbal valency. Verbal aspect, as a separate grammatical category, is not being dealt with by Roman linguistics before 20th century. This dissertation studies if and how authors of older grammars perceive and describe effects that belong to this category, predominantly the expression of perfective and imperfective aspects. Keywords: verb, Italian grammar, morphology, syntax, verbal aspect

The dissertation deals with the question of verbal aspect and manner of verbal action in Czech and Ukrainian language. The aim is to describe prefixes, which are used as means of verbal derivation and formation of aspectual pairs. The present study is divided into chapters: Introduction, Resear of verbal aspekt and Aktionsart, Verbal aspect, Manner of verbal action (Aktionsart), Competition between prefixes in the meaning of aspectual pairs formation and derivation of verbs in Czech and Ukrainian langure, Summary. There are differences in the number of verbal prefixes, which have beside derivational function also grammatical function. Czech language has sixteen of these verbal prefixes, in Ukrainian there are only seven verbal prefixes, which are used in both of these processes. This is conspicuous difference, but the results of the analysis showed, that the possibilities of applying specific prefixes are in both compared languages remarkably consistent. Many verbs of various categories of verbal action manner are derived in West and East Slavic language by the same prefixes. Consensus is also in preference of identical prefixes, which are the most commonly used during pure perfectivization (especially Czech z- and Ukrainian з-/с-). Keywords verbal aspect manner of verbal action (Aktionsart) prefix

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / O trabalho ora apresentado versa sobre o aspecto verbal nas formas perifrÃsticas encontradas no portuguÃs oral culto de Fortaleza. Inicialmente fazemos uma exposiÃÃo sobre o que alguns autores entendem por perÃfrase, de modo a formar uma opiniÃo a respeito das formas perifrÃsticas que controlamos em nosso trabalho. Em seguida, focalizamos o aspecto, em geral, a fim de examinarmos o corpus, extraÃdo do PORCUFORT. ApÃs estudarmos diversas teorias sobre o aspecto, escolhemos a teoria de Coseriu, baseada no estruturalismo funcional, porque ela parte de dois pontos bÃsicos: a) diferencia Aktionsart de aspecto; b) distingue aspecto de modo. Aplicando a doutrina de Coseriu ao corpus, constatamos a confirmaÃÃo de algumas de nossas hipÃteses, como: a) a riqueza de aspectualidade nas formaÃÃes perifrÃsticas com gerÃndio, com os verbos auxiliares andar, viver, ficar, ir, vir estar, sendo este Ãltimo de particular destaque; b) o uso, quase exclusivo, do verbo ter em lugar de haver na formaÃÃo dos tempos compostos; c) a produtividade de ter (imp.) + particÃpio, em substituiÃÃo a tivera, forma simples do pretÃrito mais que perfeito do indicativo; d) a ausÃncia de algumas formas, como terei feito, tivera feito, fora fazer. Alguns fatos nos surpreenderam: a) o baixo Ãndice de utilizaÃÃo na formaÃÃo de tempos compostos com ter em relaÃÃo ao que esperÃvamos, mesmo porque esse verbo substitui, quase que completamente, o verbo haver, nessa posiÃÃo; b) o baixo Ãndice de entrelaÃamento entre as dimensÃes temporais e as aspectuais. / This dissertation is a result of a research on the verbal aspect of periphrastical forms of the spoken oral portuguese of Fortaleza. First I examine bibliographical references about these forms so as to take a decision on which parameters I have to adopt to define them. Then I focus aspect in a general way in order to examine the corpus, from PORCUFORT. After studying diverse theories about aspect, I chose Coseriuâs theory based upon structural functionalism, because it starts from two basic points: a) it makes difference between Aktionsart and aspect; b) it distinguishes aspect from mood. Applying Coseriuâs theory to the corpus, I came to these conclusions that confirm some of my hypotheses: a) the use of main verb in gerund with the auxiliary verb andar, viver, ficar, ir and estar is expressive to engender aspect; b) estar is particularly remarkable among these verbs; c) the number of main verbs in participle with the auxiliary verb ter is noticiable and the use of this verb surpassed haver; c) the use of ter (imp) + participle is employed instead of the simple form tivera; d) some forms, such as terei feito, tivera feito, fora fazer are absent. Some facts surprised me a) in spite of its significant use, if compared to haver, the use of ter did not correspond to my expectations; b) the number of exemples in which tense and aspect are linked is insignificant.

This thesis surveys the major works on the topic of verbal aspect. Chapter 1 provides an introduction, giving the background to the issue and listing some of the major contributors to the topic, Stanley Porter, Rodney Decker, Buist Fanning, and Constantine Campbell. Chapter 2 reviews and analyzes the contributions of these authors in this area of study. Further, this thesis seeks to clarify the topic, by exposing each author's views concerning the major matters of debate and by listing some subjects in verbal aspect that are in need of further study; in particular, the issue of the aspect of the perfect verb form, the aspect of the future verb form, and the historical present. Finally, chapter 3 demonstrates the importance of this issue for the study of Scripture, specifically, the study of the New Testament, and it gives suggestions for further study in this area.

The topic of this thesis is the verbal aspect in its complexity. The initial theoretical part aims to compare the differences in the notion of grammatical and lexical aspect in both Italian and Czech language and to highlight the differences in related terminology. The following practical part deals with Italian periphrastic passive and its auxiliaries venire and essere from aspectual point of view based on the Czech language. It is generally assumed that at least in the present tense, passive constructions containing the auxiliary venire should be translated into Czech with higher rate of imperfective verbs than passive constructions containing the auxiliary essere. This trend should disappear when used in the simple past or the imperfect. This claim is further analyzed with the help of the parallel corpus InterCorp, version 10.

The object of present thesis is an introduction to the issues of comparative analysis of Czech and Spanish expression instruments which are modifying the verbal action in sense of its intensity. The aim of this paper is to determine the theoretical knowledge and the differences between Czech and Spanish grammars based on the rate of verbal action. Then, on the basis of that knowledge, is accomplished an analysis of real translations made by the InterCorp corpus. Finally there is an evaluation of obtained data and a comparison with the theoretical knowledge.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a categoria do tempo interno ou aspecto verbal na organização narrativa do romance Vidas Secas, de Graciliano Ramos. Repassa-se criticamente, com base na leitura de algumas obras representativas, a contribuição tradicional ao estudo desse conceito, mesmo nos casos em que não é identificado pelo termo aspecto. Em seguida, foram abordados a conceituação da categoria do aspecto verbal e alguns conceitos sobre a semântica do perfectivo e do imperfectivo segundo estudos empreendidos por linguistas diversos. Abordou-se ainda a variedade de meios de expressão do aspecto: o lexical, o sintático, o derivacional e o flexional. No segundo momento, procedeu-se a uma análise da funcionalidade textual do aspecto como recurso de organização do texto narrativo. Para tanto, foram levados em conta os conceitos de gênero textual e de modo de organização do discurso. Estes comentários tiveram por objeto o primeiro e o nono capítulos do romance, respectivamente Mudança e Baleia / This research is aimed to investigate the role of the category of internal time - or verbal aspect in the narrative organization of the novel Vidas Secas, by Graciliano Ramos. Based on the reading of some representative works, it surveys the traditional concept study contribution, even in cases where it is not identified by the term aspect. Besides, it addressed the concept of verbal aspect category and some concepts about the perfective and imperfective semantics according to studies undertaken by many linguists. It also addressed a variety of expression means: the lexical , the syntactic, the derivational and inflectional aspects. In a second step, an analysis of the textual aspect of functionality as a resource for the organization of narrative text was proceeded. Other factors taken into account were the concepts of genre and mode of discourse organization . These comments had for object the first and ninth chapters of the novel, named Mudança and Baleia, respectively

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a categoria do tempo interno ou aspecto verbal na organização narrativa do romance Vidas Secas, de Graciliano Ramos. Repassa-se criticamente, com base na leitura de algumas obras representativas, a contribuição tradicional ao estudo desse conceito, mesmo nos casos em que não é identificado pelo termo aspecto. Em seguida, foram abordados a conceituação da categoria do aspecto verbal e alguns conceitos sobre a semântica do perfectivo e do imperfectivo segundo estudos empreendidos por linguistas diversos. Abordou-se ainda a variedade de meios de expressão do aspecto: o lexical, o sintático, o derivacional e o flexional. No segundo momento, procedeu-se a uma análise da funcionalidade textual do aspecto como recurso de organização do texto narrativo. Para tanto, foram levados em conta os conceitos de gênero textual e de modo de organização do discurso. Estes comentários tiveram por objeto o primeiro e o nono capítulos do romance, respectivamente Mudança e Baleia / This research is aimed to investigate the role of the category of internal time - or verbal aspect in the narrative organization of the novel Vidas Secas, by Graciliano Ramos. Based on the reading of some representative works, it surveys the traditional concept study contribution, even in cases where it is not identified by the term aspect. Besides, it addressed the concept of verbal aspect category and some concepts about the perfective and imperfective semantics according to studies undertaken by many linguists. It also addressed a variety of expression means: the lexical , the syntactic, the derivational and inflectional aspects. In a second step, an analysis of the textual aspect of functionality as a resource for the organization of narrative text was proceeded. Other factors taken into account were the concepts of genre and mode of discourse organization . These comments had for object the first and ninth chapters of the novel, named Mudança and Baleia, respectively