One reason that grammatical aspect and Aktionsart have been confounded
is that they appear to co-vary in Slavic languages, from which, as
Rolf correctly points out, the study (indeed the word, translated from
vid, 'see') of aspect in Greek stems. THat is, in slavic langauges
one adds a prefix (called a perfective prefix) to an imperfective (I
would call it unmarked, since, as Comrie and others, notably Forsyth
1970, point out, it can have perfective meaning in the proper
context). In the prefixed form the interpretation is both perfective
(that is, completed) and bounded (that is, telic Aktionsart). SO one
never gets prefixed perfective verbs that mean 'I have run', but 'I
have run a little bit', etc.
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Mari Broman Olsen
Research Associate
University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
3141 A.V. Williams Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
(301) 405-6754 FAX: (301) 314-9658
molsen@umiacs.umd.edu
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