Compositional and Verbal Aspect in Greek: The Aorist Imperfect Distinction and the Article-Aspect Interplay

Abstract

According to an aspectological model proposed by Kabakčiev in 1984, later developed and sophisticated, languages differ according to whether they mark aspect (perfectivity and imperfectivity) on verbs, as in the Slavic languages – among others, or through nouns/NPs featuring (non-)boundedness which is transferred onto verbs, as in the Germanic languages – among others. In this model of compositional aspect (CA), Bulgarian is a borderline case with a perfective-imperfective and an aorist-imperfect distinction and a definite article only (no indefinite), and the model is used to analyze Greek, a language exhibiting identical features. NP referents play a major role for the compositional explication of aspect. The study finds that Greek is of the same borderline/hybrid type of language as Bulgarian, featuring verbal aspect (VA) predominantly, but also peripherally CA. The aorist/imperfect distinction exists both in Greek and Bulgarian to offset the structural impact of the definite article. Analyzed are some conditions for the explication of CA in Greek and they are found similar to those in Bulgarian. However, there are specificites and differences between the two languages that must be further studied and identified. Keywords: verbal aspect, compositional aspect, definite article, article-aspect interplay, aorist-imperfect contrast

After Verkuyl’s Discovery Aspect is No Longer a Mystery, but Aspectology Needs a Reform Review Article: Henk Verkuyl, The Compositional Nature of Tense, Mood and Aspect (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022

“…The opposite was a mistake he had to overcome to grasp the essence of CA and where it operates: the sentence, not some parts thereof. Sadly, aspectology today continues to be misled by publications "discovering" CA in the VP (see Kabakčiev 2018, 2019, 2021a, Dimitrova and Kabakčiev 2021). An alarm concerning thе massive misconceptualization was recently raised: "the strong focus on internal arguments has overshadowed the role of external arguments in the calculation of aspect" (Bulatović 2020, p. 391).…”

“…However, even here things across languages are not as straightforward as linguists would like them to be. Dimitrova (2021) and Dimitrova and Kabakčiev (2021) show that, despite the definite article, Bulgarian functions in a way analogous to the other Slavic languages -the verb-encoded aspect maps certain values onto situation-participant NPs. Greek, however, features an idiosyncratic trait, an interplay in which values of situation-participant NP are mapped onto verbs marked for aspect, defacing the verb's grammatical aspect.…”

“…Such sentences, rare to find and difficult to construct (analyzed in Dimitrova and Kabakčiev 2021, p. 193, Kabakčiev 2021a, p. 4, 2021b, pp. 34-38, 2022, are perfect exemplars for revealing the quantification/de-quantification interplay in which a perfective sentence is imperfectivized separately by each of the three NPs.…”

“…Episodes are not an exotic Vendlerian situation type. On the contrary, they have huge cross-language presence: English sentences with for-time and similar adverbials of limited duration, sentences in Romance languages with atelic verbs in the aorist, Slavic delimitative verbs, Bulgarian imperfective aorists, Greek aorists and imperfects with for-time and similar adverbials (Dimitrova and Kabakčiev 2021), etc. In (15a) the "knowledge of the world" factor urges the hearer to interpret the sentence as imperfective, indefinitely iterative, not as a situation encompassing the sudden withholding of all the receipts -because life experience tells people the indefinitely iterative reading is more plausible, despite the rules of Verkuyl's schemata.…”

On how Compositional Aspect and the Article-Aspect Interplay Ought to Appear in English Comprehensive Grammars

“…Maria In Bulgarian and Greek the imperfectivity of cheteshe 'read' (Bulgarian) and diávaze 'read' (Greek) is somewhat specific in that it is complemented by the imperfect grammeme, which amplifies the imperfectivity of the lexical verb (Dimitrova and Kabakčiev 2021). This is the way aspect is directly expressed in the verb in the Slavic languages, Greek, etc.…”