Temporal constructions in Afrikaans are ambiguous with respect to aspectual meaning. The past tense construction with het ge-, for instance, can be interpreted as progressive, perfective or anterior. In the same vein, the unmarked present tense construction can be interpreted as a construction with a progressive or a perfective meaning. This aspectual ambiguity of the Afrikaans verbal system has a significant effect on the way in which Afrikaans grammar is described or understood. The observation by native speakers, linguists, literary specialists and writers that the temporal constructions in Afrikaans are vague or ambiguous with regard to aspectual meaning has led to certain views about the expression of tense in the language. In Afrikaans literature, for example, there is a tradition to write prose primarily in the present tense, because of the perception that the past tense is not adequate to convey particular semantic nuances. Furthermore, certain speakers of Afrikaans and linguists believe that Afrikaans grammar has been simplified and just does not have aspect. However, Afrikaans possesses alternative strategies to specify aspectual meaning. The five prototypical ways of expressing aspectual meaning in Afrikaans are i) lexical constructions (such as adverbs and conjunctions); ii) constructions with affixes, iii) reduplication constructions; iv) passive constructions; and v) periphrastic constructions. Aspectual meaning in Afrikaans is an almost entirely unexplored research field. In my opinion, the literature on the expressions of aspectual meaning in Afrikaans contains two shortcomings. First, Afrikaans aspect needs to be described theoretically. Second, more research is needed concerning the specific ways in which aspectual meaning is expressed in Afrikaans. The scope of this entire research field is too large for a single study. For that reason, the present study aims to reveal the way in which periphrastic constructions are used to convey progressive meaning. As far as temporal meaning is concerned, it is possible to make a distinction between tempus meaning, which stands for deictic temporal meanings (i.e. past, present and future tense), and aspectual meaning, which stands for non-deictic temporal meanings such as duration, point of view and the internal structure of the situation. One can also distinguish between lexical and grammatical aspect. Lexical aspect has to do with the conceptual properties of a situation or, in other words, with the question whether it is static or dynamic, telic or atelic and durative. There are five situation types: states, activities, achievements, accomplishments and semelfactives. Grammatical aspect concerns the point of view from which the situation is perceived. One can make a distinction between perfective and imperfective grammatical aspect. The latter can be subdivided into imperfectives conveying habitual meaning and imperfectives conveying progressive meaning. Grammaticalisation theory is useful and a relevant tool to provide answers to the afore-mentioned research questions. First, it offers insight into the manner in which the ambiguous tempus constructions of Afrikaans came into being. Second, it can be used to show how the alternative aspectual constructions have developed and how they are currently employed in the language. For the purpose of this study, grammaticalisation is regarded as language change in which a construction loses its lexical meaning and comes to express grammatical meaning. Grammatical constructions can be used in more contexts than their lexical counterparts, as grammaticalised uses have been generalized contextually. Grammatical constructions lose the morphosyntactic properties typical of their lexical counterparts and assume grammatical properties. Grammaticalisation is a typological phenomenon and the lexical origin of a grammatical construction is often the same in different languages. Grammaticalizing constructions exhibit an increase in frequency. Afrikaans and Dutch are closely related languages and possess cognate periphrastic progressive constructions, viz. i) the aan het- / aan die- ii) VPOS te / VPOS en-; en iii) bezig- / besig- progressive constructions. To examine the use of periphrastic progressive constructions in Afrikaans from a grammaticalisation perspective, I compare the results of a study of these constructions in an Afrikaans corpus to those of previous studies of the periphrastic progressive constructions in Dutch. The respective constructions are compared on the basis of four criteria, viz. i) frequency; ii) verb collocations; iii) transitivity; and iv) combinatorial possibilities with other aspectual periphrastic constructions. The lexical origins of the various constructions are also considered. The comparison of the constructions on the basis of the afore-mentioned criteria makes it possible to demonstrate how the periphrastic progressive constructions in Afrikaans came into being and how they have developed into grammatical constructions conveying aspectual meaning and in which way the different Afrikaans periphrastic constructions express progressive meaning. / PhD (Afrikaans and Dutch), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Notre recherche porte sur la compréhension approfondie de la chronogenèse italienne et, en son sein, de l'expression du futur, selon les principes théoriques et méthodologiques guillaumiens. Notre étude comparative associe les approches diachronique et synchronique. Nous étudions l'évolution de l'expression du futur de l'ancien italien à l'italien contemporain écrits grâce à un 1er corpus construit à partir du texte original du Decamerone de G. Boccaccio, de sa traduction en italien contemporain proposée par A. Busi et de sa traduction en français par J. Bourciez. Nous comparons l'expression du futur dans trois romans graphiques rédigés en italien (par des auteurs originaires de Vénétie et de Sicile) et en français, à l'aide d'une 2e série de corpus extrapolée à partir des transcriptions de ces BD. Nous observons, d'une part, les différences entre le français et l'italien standards contemporains, d'autre part, les réalisations de l'italien standard selon l'influence des substrats régionaux. Grâce à un 3e corpus, nous étudions l'expression du futur en napolitain en comparant les textes de chansons napolitaines du XIXe au XXIe, avec leurs traductions en italien et français standards. Notre confrontation des diverses solutions pour le futur couvre d'Ouest en Est la Romania occidentale (français standard, italien régional de Vénétie), la position centrale qu'occupe l'italien standard issu du florentin littéraire, la Romania orientale (italien régional de Sicile, napolitain). Nous étudions la distribution des formes morphologiques du futur (synthétiques, analytiques), leurs emplois (temporels, modaux) ainsi que les solutions alternatives d'expression du futur (autres temps, CC de temps). Nous discutons les concepts d'aspect, d'accompli et d'inaccompli, de perfectif et d'imperfectif et étudions leur distribution dans les formes morphosyntaxiques de l'expression du futur. / Our research focuses on the deep understanding of the Italian chronogenesis, and within it, of the expression of future, based on the theoretical and methodological principles of G. Guillaume. Our comparative study combines diachronic and synchronic approaches. We study the evolution of the expression of future from former Italian to contemporary Italian literature through a first corpus built from the original text of the Decameron of G. Boccaccio, its contemporary translation proposed by A. Busi and its French translation by J. Bourciez. We compare the expression of future in three Italian (by authors from the Veneto and Sicily) and French graphic novels, with a second series of corpus extrapolated from the transcripts of these comics. We observe, on one hand, the differences between French and Italian contemporary standards, and on the other hand, the achievements of the Italian standard according to its substrates' regional influence. With a third corpus, we study the expression of future by comparing Neapolitan songs texts from the XIXth to the XXth century, with their translations in Italian and French. Our comparison of the various solutions for future covers, from West to East, the western Romania (standard French, Veneto regional Italian), and the central position of the Italian literary standard from Florentine, Eastern Romania (Sicilian regional Italian, Neapolitan). We study the distribution of future's morphological forms (synthetic, analytic), uses (temporal, modal) and alternative expression of future (other times, adverbial phrase of time). We discuss the concepts of aspect, accomplished and unaccomplished, perfective and imperfective and study their distribution in the morphosyntactic forms of future's expression.

The goal of the thesis is to contribute to the description of the category of aspect and to do so in an alternative way, i.e. without linking aspectual value of a sentence exclusively or directly to the morphological make-up of the verb. The starting point is the distinction between states and activities, i.e. between state and activity events. In the center of our attention are states, namely the way how states are expressed by perfective predicates. Two analyses of corpus data (SYN v7) were performed to pursue the issue. The first analysis focused on the occurrence of state and activity meanings of perfective forms of so-called capacitive verbs. It turns out that one of the decisive factors construing the aspectual meaning of a sentence is the category of tense. The other analysis focused on a collocation we have termed aspectual paradox. It combines durative adverbials (for instance stále) with perfective verbs in the framework of one construction. This analysis has demonstrated that another important factor involved in sentence aspectual construal is modality. Another outcome of this analysis is a classification of state meanings of the "durative adverbial + perfective" collocation. Eleven kinds of meanings were established: ability, possibility, existence, quality, quantity, etc. Verba...