A Speaker-Based Approach to Aspect

Abstract

The aspect of a sentence presents a situation in a certain light, contributing to the point of view conveyed by a sentence. The contrast between perfective and imperfective viewpoint is one component of sentential aspect, and another component is the type of situation talked about. It is well-known that the components interact in some way. One familiar example involves entailment: entailments differ for imperfective sentences, depending on the type of situation talked about. In spite of examples like this the relation between situation type and perspective is not very well understood. I will present an analysis which deals with the contribution of both components to sentential aspect. An essential factor of the analysis is the role of the speaker, who is responsible for the choices that indicate the point of view of a sentence.