Aspectuality in Bantu: on the limits of Vendler's categories
In current-day aspectology, there is a strong tendency towards bi-dimensional approaches in which aspectual meaning is understood as arising through the selection of abstract lexically specified temporal phases through morphosyntactic aspectual operators. This leads to the question how much of a sta...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Dartmouth College Library
2018-01-01
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| Series: | Linguistic Discovery |
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.479 |
| Summary: | In current-day aspectology, there is a strong tendency towards bi-dimensional approaches in which aspectual meaning is understood as arising through the selection of abstract lexically specified temporal phases through morphosyntactic aspectual operators. This leads to the question how much of a state-of-affairs can be represented in the lexical phase structure. By looking at data from three Bantu languages this paper shows how the widely received categories stipulated by Vendler (1957/1967) fail to capture the behaviour of a class of lexemes commonly called 'inchoative verbs' in the Bantuist tradition. This paper further shows how the essential limits of Vendler's categories are reflected in most mainstream radical selection theories of aspect and argues in favour of a more fine-grained understanding of the lexical dimension. Thereby I aim to draw the attention of the general linguistic audience to the situation in this language family, which previously has been somewhat overlooked in typological studies of aspectuality. |
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| ISSN: | 1537-0852 |