The aim of this thesis is to investigate the inchoative constructions in the French and Czech languages. These constructions have never been analysed on the parallel corpus. For this reason, the author has decided to examine this theme based on the data of the parallel corpus InterCorp. The first part represents a general introduction to the theme, particularly to the aspect theory in both languages. The second part is divided in to two chapters. The first one focuses on the constructions which expresses the inchoative aspect in French, particurarly periphrastic and light verbs. The second one covers inchoative constructions in Czech. The third research part of this thesis focuses on the detailed analysis of the selected verbs. The analysis is based on the criteria resulting from the theoretical part. In conclusion, there is a summary of the research as well as the possibilities for more researches dealing with this theme.

abstract: A question that has driven much of the current research in formal syntax is whether it is the lexicon or the syntax that determines the argument structure of a verb. This dissertation attempts to answer this question with a focus on Arabic, a language that has received little attention in the literature of argument structure. In this dissertation, argument structure realization is examined in relation to three different components, namely the root, the CV-skeleton and the structure around the verb. I argue that argument structure is not determined on a root level in Arabic. I also show that only few CV-skeletons (verb patterns) are associated with certain argument structures. Instead, the burden of determining argument structure lies on elements around the structure of VP. The determinants of inner aspect in Arabic and the relation between eventuality types and argument structure are also examined. A cartographic model is provided to show how elements around the VP play a role in determining the inner aspect. This model also represents a relationship between argument structure and eventuality types. The question of what determines argument structure is further addressed through the investigation of the causative/inchoative alternation in Arabic in light of recent semantic and syntactic accounts. I argue that most Arabic verbs that undergo the alternation are non-agentive change-of-state verbs. Although certain lexical characteristics may account for which verbs alternate and which do not, exceptions within a language and/or across languages do exist. I point to a range of phenomena that can be only explained from syntactic points of view. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

Denna studie undersöker samspelet mellan de semantiska kategorierna inkoativitet, futurum och modalitet i få/får/fick/fått + perceptionsverbskonstruktioner i skriven svenska , samt om det går att systematiskt skilja mellan dessa kategorier i form av frekvens och kontext. Enligt Åke Viberg framstår få som rätt språkspecifikt i sitt polysema omfång jämfört med andra europeiska språk, såsom engelska, finska, tyska och franska (Viberg 2009: 105, 119, 2012: 1413). Vidare påstår han att perceptionsverben se, höra och veta i samband med få som hjälpverb (få + perceptionsverb) uttrycker inkoativitet och även att den inkoativa betydelsen är semantiskt nära besläktad med futurum (Viberg 2002: 123, 2012: 1444). Inkoativitet innebär ett predikats uttryck för övergång (Bybee et al., 1994), ofta utan någon som helst hänvisning till vad som orsakar det övergående skedet (Viberg 2002: s.129). Studien är en korpusundersökning baserad på skönlitterära texter och pressmaterial från 70- till 90-talet, där 50 meningar per perceptionsverb analyseras utifrån de semantiska kategorier de anses uttrycka. Resultaten tyder på att det inte går att semantiskt kategorisera konstruktionerna få + perceptionsverb som en kategori för sig, som uttrycker inkoativitet och futurum. Konstruktionerna uppvisar en viss semantisk relation till futurum och inkoativa betydelser men är även i stor utsträckning kopplade till andra funktioner av få + verb i infinitiv, särskilt modalitet. Undersökningen tillför en ökad förståelse för få:s polysema grammatiska beteende samt bidrar till den allmänna förståelsen för tempus, aspekt och modalitet i svenska. / This paper studies the interplay between inchoative, future and modal meanings in constructions containing the verb of possession få (in all of its four conjugations) + verbs of perception in written Swedish, and seeks to find out if it is possible to systematically differentiate these categories from each other in terms of frequency and context. According to Åke Viberg, the Swedish verb of possession få appears to be quite language specific with its polysemic characteristics compared to other European languages, such as English, Finnish, German and French (Viberg 2009: s.105, 119, 2012: s.1413). Viberg also suggests that få in combination with either of the three verbs of perception se ‘see’, höra ‘hear’, veta ‘know’ expresses inchoative sense, to which he further states the future sense is closely related to (Viberg 2002: 123, 2012: 1444). The inchoative sense is when a predicate expresses transition (Bybee et al., 1994), often with a lack of explicit reference to the cause of the transition (Viberg 2002: s.129). The study is a corpus investigation, which includes a selection of fiction and newspaper material ranging from the 1970s to the 1990s. 50 sentences per perception verb are analysed based on the semantic categories that they are considered being an expression of. The results show that the få + perception verb constructions are not semantically classifiable as a category which expresses the inchoative and future sense. Apart from displaying some connection with the inchoative and future meanings, these constructions appear to be well integrated with other functions expressed by få + infinitive verbs, primarily modality. In addition to provide an increased understanding of the polysemic grammatical behaviour of få as an auxiliary verb, this investigation also contributes to the overall knowledge of tense, aspect and modality in Swedish.