Fwd: 23.2309, Diss: Scottish Gaelic/Lang Documentation/Semantics: Reed: 'The Semantics of Grammatical Aspect: Evidence from Scottish Gaelic'

[Elizabeth J. Pyatt]

Just saw thinks information on a Scottish Gaelic dissertation from LinguistList which I thought was worth passing on.

Elizabeth

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> From: linguist at linguistlist.org
> Subject: 23.2309, Diss: Scottish Gaelic/Lang Documentation/Semantics: Reed: 'The Semantics of Grammatical Aspect: Evidence from Scottish Gaelic'
> Date: May 14, 2012 1:58:31 PM EDT
> To: LINGUIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Reply-To: linguist at linguistlist.org
> 
> LINGUIST List: Vol-23-2309. Mon May 14 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
> 
> Subject: 23.2309, Diss: Scottish Gaelic/Lang Documentation/Semantics: Reed: 'The Semantics of Grammatical Aspect: Evidence from Scottish Gaelic'
> 
> 
> Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyan at linguistlist.org>
> ================================================================  
> 
> 
> Date: Mon, 14 May 2012 13:57:56
> From: Sylvia Reed [slreed at email.arizona.edu]
> Subject: The Semantics of Grammatical Aspect: Evidence from Scottish Gaelic
> 
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> 
> Institution: University of Arizona 
> Program: Department of Linguistics 
> Dissertation Status: Completed 
> Degree Date: 2012 
> 
> Author: Sylvia L. Reed
> 
> Dissertation Title: The Semantics of Grammatical Aspect: Evidence from Scottish 
> Gaelic 
> 
> Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation
>                     Semantics
> 
> Subject Language(s): Gaelic, Scottish (gla)
> 
> 
> Dissertation Director(s):
> Heidi Harley
> Andrew Carnie
> 
> Dissertation Abstract:
> 
> This dissertation presents a theory of grammatical aspect in which perfects
> and prospectives form a sub-group separate from perfectives and
> imperfectives. I claim that aspects in this sub-group display a number of
> similar semantic and syntactic behaviors because of the way in which they
> relate event and reference times. While perfectives and imperfectives
> situate these times in inclusion relations, perfects and prospectives
> separate event time from reference time. This effectively creates an
> interval, homogeneous with respect to the eventuality, that can be
> interpreted as a state. The separation of the times in these aspects also
> means that modification of the interval between these times is possible, as
> is modification by adverbials like 'since' that cannot occur with other
> aspects.
> 
> 
> These claims are supported by the morphosyntax and semantics of aspect
> particles in Scottish Gaelic, with additional data from English. I
> investigate six particles in Scottish Gaelic, focusing on four I claim to
> mark various aspects and one I claim to be simply a preposition. I argue
> that in addition to two inclusion aspects, perfective and imperfective
> (expressed via a synthetic form and by 'a'', respectively), Scottish Gaelic
> shows four distinctions of precedence aspect--two retrospective ('air', 'as
> dèidh') and two prospective ('gu', 'a' dol do'). I provide a
> neo-Reichenbachian analysis of these particles within event semantics. In
> each case, the particle is an instantiation of an Aspect head that
> existentially quantifies over an event and places its runtime in a relation
> to reference time. I also argue that the particle 'ann', which seems to
> appear with both verbal and nominal material, is not an aspect particle but
> a preposition. Its appearance in the same linear position as the aspect
> particles belies its distinct syntactic structure.
> 
> 
> Overall, the data indicate the benefit of a view of grammatical aspect in
> which the basic time relations of reference time within, before, and after
> event time delineate groups of aspects rather than individual distinctions.
> This view of aspect is a more cohesive alternative to one in which aspects
> that may actually be very similar are taken to exist in separate categories. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer/Lecturer in Linguistics
Penn State University
ejp10 at psu.edu
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/

Got Unicode Blog
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