Perfective-Imperfective

[Patrick C. Ryan]

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 1999 10:49 AM

[PR previously]

>> I wonder what proof we really have --- aside from the Larry's bare
>> assertion --- that the definition of 'perfective' used in Larry's
>> dictionary is "now most widely used". It is certainly true that a
>> number of writers on the subject of aspect have, apparently,
>> followed Comrie.

[LT responded]
> Well, read the literature on aspect.

[PR]

In a previous posting on this subject, Larry assured us:

"So, in place of the wide variation in terminology of 50 years ago, we
now have a near-consensus among those who have investigated aspect most
carefully.  The definition of `perfective' in my dictionary is the one
now most widely used, and I suggest that we should, for once, agree on
this definition, as a small step toward the goal of unifying our
terminology -- a goal which I trust is shared by Pat Ryan."

However, this conclusion was preceded by the following overview:

"Now, I know of five scholarly book-length studies of aspect published in
the last 15 years: those by Dahl, by Comrie, by Binnick, by Smith and by
Verkuyl.  Verkuyl's book I exclude below, since the author, for his own
reasons, deliberately refrains from offering plain-language definitions
of the aspectual categories he recognizes."

"Of the others, Comrie, of course, uses about the same definition of
`perfective' as that found in my dictionary."

[PR interjects]

Not really surprising since you apparently got it from Comrie.

[Larry continued]

"Smith does the same. Binnick offers no view of his own, but observes that
Comrie's definition
is now the one most widely used.  He cites some examples, involving wording
like "indivisible situation" and "integral action".  Dahl does not deny this
observation, but confesses to dissatisfaction with this
definition, on the interesting ground that it is too restrictive: it
excludes certain forms traditionally called `perfective'.  But even Dahl
expressly denies the identification of `perfective' with `completive':
he regards the two as quite distinct, and he emphatically does not equate
the perfective with completion."

 [PR]

Smith agrees with Comrie's definition; Binnick does not; Dahl does not nor
does Verkuyl!

I have looked in Larry's dictionary to see if he or Comrie have re-defined
"consensus" but, thank God, they have not.

2 for; 3 against. This does not seem like a "near-consensus" to me! And
furthermore, I have pointed out that other linguists evidently are not aware
of the judgment of their peers either.

[PR previously]

> [on Dixon on Biblical Hebrew]

>> Dixon is a current, well-known linguist who, I suppose on the basis
>> of what he has written, cited above, does not subscribe to the
>> Comrie definitions of imperfective/perfective.

[LT responded]
> Sorry; doesn't follow.  Dixon is talking about a language with its own
> aspectual contrasts and its own established terminology.  Hebrew is no
> more a basis for a universal definition than Russian is.

[ PR asks]

Then what, pray tell, can be the source for the "universal" definition if we
eliminate the evidences of it in languages like Hebrew and Russian. Is it a
Platonic idea, with no necessary connection to or with reality?

[PR previously]

>> I think it would be advisable for Larry to realize that when he
>> purports to write a dictionary, he should be describing and
>> acknowledging real current professional usage *not* writing a
>> catechism of definitions he and Comrie would desire to see adopted.
>> We are long past 1984, and, however much some might want it, 'war'
>> is not 'peace'.

[LT responded]
> I have already made it clear that I *am* describing "real current
> professional usage", while you are clinging to an outdated view.

[PR]
I know very well what you *think* you are doing but your overview does not
support your contention.

[LT]
> [on my rejection of Pei and of general dictionaries of English as
> reliable sources for linguistic terminology]

[PR previously]
>> What Larry obviously is unwilling to acknowledge is that these
>> dictionaries, if they are doing *their* jobs properly (does he
>> dispute it?), are recording *USAGE* no matter whatever Larry thinks
>> might be the *proper* definition. I sincerely hope that he does not
>> succeed in imposing his and Comrie's definition on the non-linguist
>> and linguist readership of these dictionaries as he threatens.
>> Frankly, I believe his demonstrated attitude makes him unqualified
>> to be an adviser on usage in dictionaries like the OED.

[LT]
> Dear, dear.  I'm afraid it's up to you, Pat, to compile the Ryan English
> Dictionary.  The editors of the OED seem pretty pleased with my work so
> far, and they are showing no inclination to sack me, I'm afraid.
> No doubt we can look forward to a ceremonial burning of the third
> edition of the OED in Arkansas. ;-)

[PR]
Frankly, I doubt they will let you ignore the current usage of the word
'perfective'. But, I can assure you, if I were, like you, proposing to
re-define 'perfective', and ignore its previous and current usage, I would
find room to include the term I proposed to supplant it ('completive') in
its previous and current usage in any dictionary I would write. The omission
of a replacement term is simply unforgivable.

[LT]
> [on my rejection of the etymological fallacy]

[PR previously]
>> In its most extreme interpretation, there is some truth in this,
>> provided one emends the statement to 'perfective' rather than
>> 'perfect', which we have not been discussing. However, to neglect
>> the etymological meaning of a word while making a *new* assignment
>> of meaning, which is what Comrie did . . .

[LT responded]
> No, he didn't.

[PR]
And I say he did. Had he not given 'perfective' a new definition, which does
not include the idea of completion, we would not be having this discussion!

[PR previously]
>> or to adopt it as Larry did, is irresponsible and totally
>> unjustified.

[LT responded]
> Nonsense.  Balderdash.  I am reporting on contemporary use, and
> etymology is neither here nor there.

[PR]
By your own overview, and the facts I have introduced, you are not reporting
"contemporary use" but selectively only the use to which you and Comrie and
Smith would like to see 'perfective' put.

[PR previously]
>> Let us provisionally assume that Comrie's definition of 'perfective'
>> ("denotes a situation viewed in its entirety, without regard to
>> internal temporal constituency") actually means something in English
>> (what in God's name would an 'internal temporal constituent' be???).

[LT responded]
> Not `constituent', but `constituency'.  It means `structure'.

[PR]
Check a dictionary other than your own and you may find that a
'constituency' is constituted of constituents. Notice, however, that Larry
makes no attempt to explain "internal temporal constituency"!

[PR previously]
>> If it were true that verbal notions could be "superordinate"ly
>> divided into those for which this definition had some meaning, and
>> those for which it did not, it would still be highly inappropriate
>> to adopt the term "perfective" for it when "perfective" had and has
>> an established older and current (dictionaries and Dixon) meaning
>> established through usage which corresponds to what Trask would like
>> to call, *unnecessarily* introducing a new term, 'completive'
>> (which, of course, he did not bother to include in his dictionary).

[LT responded]
> I didn't introduce `completive'.  And it's absent from my dictionary
> because I was forced to deliver a book within a specified length.
> Not my preference.

[PR]
Better luck with the OED editors!

[PR previously]
>> Why not call it - if it exists at all - 'integral' (cf. Binnick) or
>> something else which, at least, bears a *passing*, a nodding
>> resemblance in meaning to its purported idea?

[LT responded]
> Hmmm.  Having complained bitterly that I am (allegedly) ignoring
> established terminology in favor of my own coinages, you are now
> advising us to coin a new term for a concept which already has an
> established name.  Uh-huh.

[PR]
God forbid that 'perfective'  should ever be truly established in the
Comriean definition. Actually, I have not problem with retaining 'momentary'
for what I think Comrie is getting at with 'perfective' and durative for his
'imperfective' but that does require a new term to designate the
correspondent of punctual for Aktionart: why not non-punctual?

[PR previously]
>> Having asked the question, I will attempt to answer it. Bernard
>> Comrie has done much valuable work over the years with which I am
>> personally familiar. However, in the case of his book _Aspect_, I
>> sincerely and honestly believe he is idiosyncratically deviant from
>> start to finish.

[LT responded]
> "Idiosyncratically deviant from start to finish", eh?  So: one of the
> most erudite and respected linguists on the planet doesn't know what
> he's talking about, while you do?  Really?

[PR]
Yes, I believe he has a blind spot in this area. While I respect you
enormously for your work on Basque, many people have showed on this list and
others that *you* are not universally infallible.

 <snip>

[PR previously]
>> I could give many examples from his book that make assertions
>> contrary to what specialists in the various fields assert (for
>> example, "the Arabic Perfective, which is a perfective relative
>> past"; the idea that kataba/yaktubu represents a past/present
>> division is an idea held by *no* AAist of which I am aware; what
>> entitles Comrie to contradict all previous Arabists? And how likely
>> is it that he understands Arabic better than they do?).

[LT responded]
> I would be *veeeery* careful about challenging Comrie's knowledge of any
> language he writes about.  There exist few linguists with greater
> knowledge of more languages than Comrie has.

[PR]
It would be so much more impressive if Comrie's book (1976) had actually
persuaded any AAists of his greater insight in the last 23 years. Do you
know one that agrees with him on this point?

<snip of material introducing habituality, covered in another posting>

[LT responded]
> But you are overlooking something crucial: the first-person subject.
> That makes a *big* difference, as it does in a wide variety of cases:

> `Mike thinks that Susie is younger than she is.'
> ##`I think that Susie is younger than she is.'

> `Schubert died before he finished his last symphony.'
> ##`I died before I finished my last symphony.'

> `Mike will wash the dishes.
> `I'll wash the dishes.' (different interpretation)

> First-person effects are pervasive in English, and must be factored out
> of our analyses.

[PR]
Vintage Larry. Red herring. Without explaining the "first person effects"
(outside of Appalachia, I think we would say "AFFECT"), Larry implies that
this discounts my assertion of the normal understanding of the phrase "used
to VP" (="no longer VP"). Any of the examples I used are applicable in any
person!

[PR previously]
>> If it does not imply that to Comrie, I can only suggest that he may
>> be a non-native speaker of English who has never mastered its
>> nuances; and, as such, is unqualified to lecture those who are on
>> the interpretation of phrases such as "NP used to V". This is what
>> anyone who was reasonable might have suspected from the "it is often
>> claimed ...". Why is it so "often" claimed if many do not understand
>> it as I do? And what entitles Comrie to "correct" our native
>> interpretations? His professorial authority?

[LT responded]
> Well.  Let me defend my old friend Bernard against these disgraceful
> slurs.

> I've known Bernard for twenty years, and I can assure you all that he is
> indeed a native speaker of English, born and raised in England.

> But the much bigger slur is that Comrie is the sort of linguist who
> merely reports his own intuitions, without looking at the data.
> Bernard is an enormously knowledgeable linguist.  He speaks Russian
> almost like a native, and he is fluent in a number of other languages.
> He has made serious studies of a large number of languages, and he's
> done fieldwork in places ranging from Siberia to New Guinea.  And he
> *never* makes a statement he can't back up with plenty of hard data.

[PR]
I am claiming that you and he have no data on which to back your claim that
your interpretation of the phrase is superior to mine. If you consider an
observation that might incline Comrie to change his mind a "slur", so be it.
I have already expressed my admiration for his previous work.

I also contacted Comrie directly when this discussion began, sent him a copy
of my observations, and invited him to join us, or respond to me, in which
case I would have been glad to convey his counter-arguments to the group. He
has not yet chosen to take me up on this offer but perhaps he will.

If Comrie had "hard data", the time to introduce it would have been when he
discussed the issue in his book, and noted,candidly, that the contrary
interpretation is often claimed. He did not. He merely asserted it,
presumably, on his own authority or understanding.

Pat

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