This dissertation presents a theory of grammatical aspect in which perfects and prospectives form a sub-group separate from perfectives and imperfectives. I claim that aspects in this sub-group display a number of similar semantic and syntactic behaviors because of the way in which they relate event and reference times. While perfectives and imperfectives situate these times in inclusion relations, perfects and prospectives separate event time from reference time. This effectively creates an interval, homogeneous with respect to the eventuality, that can be interpreted as a state. The separation of the times in these aspects also means that modification of the interval between these times is possible, as is modification by adverbials like since that cannot occur with other aspects. These claims are supported by the morphosyntax and semantics of aspect particles in Scottish Gaelic, with additional data from English. I investigate six particles in Scottish Gaelic, focusing on four I claim to mark various aspects and one I claim to be simply a preposition. I argue that in addition to two inclusion aspects, perfective and imperfective (expressed via a synthetic form and by a' , respectively), Scottish Gaelic shows four distinctions of precedence aspect - two retrospective (air , as dèidh) and two prospective (gu , a' dol do). I provide a neo-Reichenbachian analysis of these particles within event semantics. In each case, the particle is an instantiation of an Aspect head that existentially quantifies over an event and places its runtime in a relation to reference time. I also argue that the particle ann, which seems to appear with both verbal and nominal material, is not an aspect particle but a preposition. Its appearance in the same linear position as the aspect particles belies its distinct syntactic structure. Overall, the data indicate the benefit of a view of grammatical aspect in which the basic time relations of reference time within, before, and after event time delineate groups of aspects rather than individual distinctions. This view of aspect is a more cohesive alternative to one in which aspects that may actually be very similar are taken to exist in separate categories.

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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

This dissertation examines conceptual reorganisation in second language learners by comparing event construal patterns in first language (L1) and second language (L2) discourse. Previous research suggests that the way grammatical aspect is encoded in the speaker's L1 can influence how events are conceptualised in their L2 (von Stutterheim & Carroll 2006). Given the lack of consensus regarding partial (Bylund 2011a) versus zero (Schmiedtová et al. 2011) susceptibility to reorganising L1 event construal patterns in L2, the present work contributes to this resonant discussion by investigating the extent to which language-specific grammatical aspectual operators influence message planning (Levelt 1989, Habel & Tappe 1999) in three typologically diverse L1 groups and four L2 groups. More specifically, film verbalisations and picture descriptions by Czech, Hungarian and English native speakers, and Czech and Hungarian learners of English at basic and advanced levels were elicited to test (a) whether crosslinguistic event construal contrasts are attributable to the differences in the grammatical means that are available for encoding temporality in a particular L1; (b) whether learners’ degree of susceptibility to reorganising L1 principles for temporal reference in the target language changes as a function of L2 proficiency; and (c) whether event construal patterns across groups remain unaffected by changes of modality (speech vs. writing) and task type. The main novel feature lies in testing L2 learners’ ability to adjust L1 thinking-for-speaking principles (Slobin 1996) in the target language through a systematic scrutiny of four conceptualisation processes abreast (i.e. event segmentation, information selection, temporal structuring and linearization).

Les travaux précédents menés en acquisition du langage soutiennent que les premières formes verbales de l’enfant sont limitées à l’expression de l’ici et maintenant (Weist, 1991). Cependant, une étude sur le développement du système verbal temporel en français (Parisse & Morgenstern, 2012) montre que l’enfant dispose d’une capacité à faire référence au passé de manière précoce, avant la production de marqueurs spécifiques dédiés à cet effet. Les études sur l’acquisition de l’aspect établissent une forte corrélation entre la production des verbes téliques et l’aspect perfectif (Shirai & Andersen, 1995), sans toutefois distinguer les marqueurs prétérit et present perfect. Slobin (1994) montre que le present perfect présente des fonctions communicatives spécifiques en lien avec l’expression du résultat et de l’expérience. À notre connaissance, aucune étude développementale de l’acquisition de ce marqueur n’a été menée jusqu’à présent. Nous nous proposons d’étudier les productions précoces de present perfect chez deux enfants britanniques dans le cadre des premiers usages des marqueurs de l’ici et maintenant et du décentrement dans le passé et de leurs valeurs dans le langage adressé à l’enfant. Nous avons mené des analyses quantitatives et qualitatives sur deux corpus longitudinaux denses d’interactions orales spontanées adulte/enfant (Tomasello, 2003). Nos résultats suggèrent que les productions précoces de present perfect résultent de la fréquence du marqueur trouvée chez l’adulte et du développement cognitif de l’enfant. L’étude des premiers usages du marqueur révèle que l’enfant s’appuie d’abord sur un état résultant visible à T0. Progressivement, l’enfant se sert de l’état résultant attaché à la production du marqueur pour verbaliser des attentes ou des intentions présupposées à T0. L’enfant demande ainsi à l’adulte de répondre à des besoins spécifiques exprimés dans la situation présente. / Previous studies in language acquisition have claimed that the verbal forms in early child language are limited to the expression of the here and now (Weist, 1991). However, a study of the verbal temporal system in French children’s speech (Parisse & Morgenstern, 2012) has shown that the children are able to refer to past events from an early age before they produce specific grammatical markers. Studies on the acquisition of aspect have established a strong correlation between the production of telic verbs and perfective aspect, without distinguishing between the present perfect and past tense. Slobin (1994) has shown that the first uses of the present perfect serve specific communicative functions that relate to the expression of result and experience. To our knowledge, no developmental study of the acquisition of the present perfect has been conducted so far. We conducted a study of how two British children use the present perfect in connection with their first uses of the markers referring to the here and now and their early productions of past tense. We examined the early uses of the markers in relation to the uses identified in the child directed speech in two dense oral corpora. Analyses based on qualitative and quantitative data were conducted on the adult and the child’s speech in the context of the interactions between the two (Tomasello, 2003). Our results suggest that the early productions of the present perfect result from the frequency of the marker found in the input and the cognitive development of the children. The study shows that they first rely on a visible resultant state in T0. Gradually, the children come to use the resultant state attached to the production of the marker to verbalise presupposed expectations or intentions in T0. By doing so, the children ask their caregivers to address specific needs that are expressed in the current situation.

This experimental study investigates the second language acquisition of the four Mandarin aspect markers -le, -guo, -zhe, and zai- by native Swedish university students enrolled in Chinese language courses in Sweden. The main points of inquiry are acquisition order, the Aspect Hypothesis, the Distributional Bias Hypothesis, and the Prototype Model. The study contains a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study. Both written and spoken data are collected. The tasks in the cross-sectional study include film-retelling, picture-retelling, grammaticality judgment, fill-in-the-blank questions and comprehension. The longitudinal study includes written data produced by seven students in their tri-monthly journal. The study shows that perfective markers are produced before imperfective markers. The results of the experiments are consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis. The Distributional Bias Hypothesis can account for most of the Aspect Hypothesis but there are exceptions that indicate that other factors could also influence the acquisition process, such as L1 transfer. The Prototype Model cannot be conclusively proven. Apart from contributing to second-language acquisition theo-ries on cross-linguistic tense-aspect morphology, this study can provide empirical evidence with significant pedagogical implications for the second-language learning classroom.

The topic of this thesis is expressing lexical aspect in Czech and Italian. The theoretical part describes the aspectuality, at first in general, then in both Czech and Italian language. The first part aims to clarify the notion of grammatical and lexical aspect. The thesis also concentrates on semantics of Czech prefixes. The practical part deals with Czech verbs with multiple prefixes and their counterparts in Italian, or rather the thesis analyses how Italian express the lexical aspect. It is the contrastive analysis. The analysed data originate from the parallel corpora InterCorp version 13. Key words Lexical aspect/Aktionsart, verbal/grammatical aspect, verbs with multiple prefixes, prefixation, parallel corpora, InterCorp, Czech, Italian

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The dissertation deals with aspect in light verb constructions in French (LVCs). Light verb predicates such as faire du doublage, faire une découverte, and donner un conseil, constitute a specific kind of verb-noun construction recognizable by two transformational tests i.e., the cancellation test and the argument co-reference test. From the aspectual point of view, there are three parameters to be recognized: the lexical aspect (states, processes, events), grammatical aspect (perfectivity, imperfectivity), and aktionsart (quantity, quality, and phase of action). Being the semantical root of LVCs, the predicative noun is a starting point for aspectual analysis, nevertheless this aspectual interpretation is drawn from the whole sentence and takes account of the whole LVC, as well as of other aspectually relevant components (aspect shifting and aspectual composition). The objective of the research is to clarify the aspectual properties of the predicative noun and examine whether and how the principle of lexical aspect shifting is applied in the context of LCVs with a focus on the role of semantics (creation, motion containing a goal destination), of the predicative noun's complement (its quantization and cumulativity), countability, and determination of the predicative noun. It is observed that countability marked by articles has a crucial effect on the interpretation of the lexical aspect and aktionsart (faire un saut - sauter une fois, faire un emballage - emballer un cadeau, *emballer une fois). The research is based upon a systematic use of real corpora contexts (InterCorp 2018, FrWac, araneum), French lexicon-grammar data (Maurice Gross and his colleagues), and native-speaker competence.