Perfective is not Completive

[ECOLING at aol.com]

Larry Trask is absolutely right when he writes:

>Forbes, and Ryan, appear to be confusing *perfective* aspect with
>*completive* aspect -- which is not the same thing.

>   perfective = no internal structure
>   completive = completion

It is a well known fact among specialists in verbal aspect
(of which I am one, have done extensive typology of verbal aspect)
that what is CALLED "Perfective" in the grammatical tradition
of a particular language may or may not bear any relation to what is
apparently the same term intended in its universal sense.
In the case of Russian,
the so-called "perfectives" are, just as Larry Trask says, normally
telic completives, rather than being typical perfectives.

Thus the following sentence is approximately true:

Russian "Perfectives" are not perfectives.

There is nothing we can do about such terminological
confusions, given that particular grammatical traditions
use terms in ways different from their current universal meanings.
Indeed, without the particular traditions we would never
have developed the typological basis to have universal
meanings at all!  No one is to blame, it merely "is" this way.

Best wishes,
Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics