Imperfective of punctuals

[ECOLING at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/9/99 1:58:11 AM, vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu writes:

>If I understand Lloyd correctly, `treated as an indivisible unit' is same
>as `treated as an undivided whole': When the speaker uses the perfective,
>he is ignoring that the event may be divisible or even carry a
>derivational marker indicating divisiblity.

Yes, that is the point, speaker psychology not real world nature.

>Puncutal is different in that it is truely indivisible,
>that is the speaker is not allowed to divide it.

Well, almost, it can refer to the inherent suddenness of an event.
Part of the real world not of speaker psychology.
An "Aktionsart" then.

>Hence it is typically used in the perfective (but in some languages the
>imperfective of puncutal is used to denote habitual and/or generic).

In such cases it is not an aspect!
(since both perfective and imperfective can co-occur with it)

"Iterative" may sometimes refer to such a combination of
punctual Aktionsart with imperfective aspect,
though "iterative" can also be a real aspect too,
applying in principle to any kind of Aktionsart.

Lloyd Anderson