Aspect: Theoretical and experimental perspectives

Abstract

The variety of the world’s languages, including sign languages, has resulted in the need for multiple ways to describe the temporal structure of sentences: tense and aspect. Tense is the easier one to understand: it describes the temporal location of an eventuality in relation to some other point in time. Lexical aspect describes inherent temporal properties of an eventuality denoted by the verb. Several systems of describing these temporal properties exist. The term event structure has also been applied to the analysis of full predicates, including arguments, rather than single lexical verbs. Components of event structure are identifiable by means of semantico-syntactic tests. Because event structure interacts with the syntax of each language, there can be variations as to the implementation of the tests, and some might work in a given language. Grammatical (viewpoint) aspect is a regularized way by which languages can describe the range of time in which the eventuality is viewed.