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Pier Marco Bertinetto wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:a05210604bb756de59f82@%5B195.223.103.238%5D">
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<title>reiterating iteratives (once again)</title>
<div>I read the correspondence concerning iteratives, and I would like to
add a personal comment.</div>
<div>I agree that no terminology is perfect, for the simple reason that
human beings are not. On the other hand, I think a little effort to find
a common ground would be welcome. Just think of this. Suppose you want to
browse the Konstanz Archive about this matter (caution: I did not do the
experiment, this is simply an example).</div>
<div>Well, what are you going to do? I presume you would do the same as
me, namely search for any possible term relating to the concept in question,
because the Archive obviously inherits the terminology of its sources (iterative,
reiterative, pluractional, frequentative, repetitive action, repeated action
etc.). This is unfortunate. Even more unfortunate, though, is the fact that
you do not know what these words actually stand for, unless the source provides
an explicit explanation.</div>
<div>So, after all, I agree with those who are in favour of a "light" (non
intrusive) standardization.</div>
<div>By the way, D. Cusic 1981 (Verbal plurality and aspect, PhD Stanford
University), introduces a nice distinction here: "event-internal (vs. external)
plurality". This does not need any further comment, anybody would understand
what is meant by that.</div>
<div>Needless to say, this does not solve the problem. Event-external plurality
may in turn mean two different (alas, often confused in the literature) things,
namely simple iterativity or habituality (as implemented in the Romance languages
or in Bulgarian, and as defined in Lenci & Bertinetto 2000 (<font face="Times" size="+1" color="#000000">
"Aspect, adverbs and events: Habituality vs. perfectivity", in James Higginbotham,
Fabio Pianesi & Achille Varzi (eds.),<i> Speaking of Events</i>, Oxford
University Press, New York / Oxford: 245-287</font>).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In any case, one step at a time is not a waste of time.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best</div>
<div>Pier Marco Bertinetto</div>
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<br>
<br>
Another personal comment:<br>
<br>
As to "event-internal (vs. external) plurality": a good example is the well-know
film title,<br>
<br>
<i>The postman always rings twice.</i><br>
<br>
I guess this is not ambiguous (in most if not all conceivable contexts),
but<br>
<br>
<i>The postman rang twice</i><br>
<br>
is - and the ambiguity is exactly that between event-internal and external
plurality.<br>
<br>
Finding catching examples pinponting a terminological distinction by way
of ambiguity of a sentence-out-of context (an ambiguity that often may not
even be observed when a sentecnce is presented in context) should not be
dismissed as a mere pedagogical device. We all know cases of terminological
distinctions where the distinction in itself is obvious enough, but we can
never remember which is which. My favorite examples are transaction vs. interaction,
or coherence vs. cohesion. (Admittedly not typological examples, but maybe
well-chosen for exactly that reason.) <br>
<br>
Needless to say, I completely agree with Pier Marco.<br>
<br>
Another good example is the stubbornness with which scholars of Slavonic
languages insist on calling aspect which really is <i>Aktionsart.</i> Yes,
I know I am being provocative, but in spite of the fact that numerous people
have tried to persuade me that this terminology actually is correct (or adequate),
I'm not convinced.<br>
<br>
Of course, this is in part a consequence of the use of English as a terminological
<i>lingua franca</i>. Nobody would probably claim that Russian <i>vid</i>
and Greek <i>opsi</i> actually are the same phenomenon (unless you <i>only</i>
are interested in function and disregard form completely), and this might
be a point in favour of good old Rasmus Rask's proposal to use separate grammatical
terminology for every language you are talking about. But if you follow his
suggestion, typology turns out to be virtually impossible. I don't want to
elaborate on this since it is obvious what this implies, but I wanted to
remind the community that we are not just discussing terminology - you never
discuss <i>just</i> terminology - but that we are getting at something very
basic and central.<br>
<br>
For a number of reasons, and for good reasons, typology must answer 'yes'
to the two questions,<br>
<br>
1. Can languages be compared?, and<br>
2. is it posssible to find a system of classification which works across
languages?<br>
<br>
at least as a working hypothesis. But making such a decision does not make
the problem disappear. If we don't make any classifications, we cannot talk.
This doesn't mean that classifications are unproblematic - but not just because
the one classification might be more suitable than the other. The very premises
on the basis of which we classify may be the real problem. For this reason,
I believe that the history of terminilogy gives us invaluable insight into
the basics of any discipline. On the other hand, doing our job requires that
we forget this - most of the time. <br>
<br>
Hartmut Haberland<br>
<br>
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