Difficult Perfective-Imperfective

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Lloyd and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <ECOLING at aol.com>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 1999 7:01 PM

[L(oyd) A(nderson) wrote]

> Any solution for perfective / imperfective
> is much more difficult than Pat Ryan yet imagines,
> because Pat does not distinguish between how a speaker chooses
> to regard a situation in the discourse of the moment (what
> the universal /typological grammarians call perfective/imperfective)
> from how we might characterize a real-world event
> (as lasting in time or as compact in time, what the universal/typological
> grammarians often call punctual vs. durative, or terms with
> similar meanings).  There is a need to distinguish these two
> concepts, whatever one calls them.  Pat's proposed "solution"
> is to not distinguish them.  That is no solution, it is simply wishing
> the problem would go away.  We need BOTH concepts in careful
> treatments of the grammar of one and the same language.

[PR responds]

I must sincerely apologize to you, Lloyd, and the list if I inadvertently
gave this false impression.

I certainly am willing and do make a distinction between

1) how a speaker chooses to regard a situation in the discourse of the
moment; and

2) how we might characterize a real-world event.

My principal objections with regard to "what the universal/typological
grammarians often call perfective/imperfective" are:

1) the terminology is inappropriate etymologically and from different
historical usage; and

2) The Comrie definitions of the two superordinate categories, which Trask
has adopted wholesale, are so Hegelian as to be

     a) virtually meaningless; and

     b) incapable of being consistently applied.

But I do not doubt for one moment that there is a superordinate category,
that attempts to classify verbal actions/states in discourse as ideally
occupying a moment (one point - 'before' or 'after' which something else
happens) or as ideally occupying a space of time (more than one point -
'during' which something else happens).

I believe these two categories are represented morphologically by IE roots
in the full-grade (points) and zero-grade (point).

Lehmann chose to term these "durative" and "momentary", which more
accurately describe the functions of these forms than does either the pair
"perfective/imperfective" or the Comriean definitions offered.

Whether a verb is presented telically or atelically has nothing to do
intrinsically with whether the discourser presents the action as a moment,
before or after which something else happens; or as a space of time, during
which something happens.

After/before I ate, he came (atelic, momentary).
After/before I ate up the bread, he came (telic, momentary).
While he ate, I drank (atelic, durative).
While he ate up the bread, I drank (telic, durative).

Whether a verb is punctual or non-punctual also has nothing to do
intrinsically with whether the discourser presents the action as a moment,
before or after which something else happens; or as a space of time, during
which something happens.

After/before I sneezed, he came (punctual, momentary).
After/before I sang, he listened (non-punctual, momentary).
While I sneezed, he came (iterative, serial punctual; durative)
While I sang, he listened (non-punctual, durative).

I believe the core of the problem is adopting a poor definition for "aspect"
such as "A grammatical category which relates to the internal temporal
structure of a situation", which, I opine, is so inclusively colorful as to
be colorless (white); and worse yet, allows mistakes like

1) considering the "perfect" an aspect when it is clearly a tense, and
describes a situation exists in one tense and which persists into the next
tense period:

a) After I had caught cold, he did also (implies that 'I still had the cold
when he caught cold');

b) After I have caught cold, he catches cold (implies that 'I still have the
cold when he catches cold').;

c) After I am to have caught cold, he is to catch cold (implies that 'I am
still to have the cold when he is to catch cold; non-modal future; German,
ich werde, etc.).

2) considering the 'progressive' an aspect and separate in some way from the
durative when it is simply a grammatical form in some languages to more
emphatically bring out the duration of an event:

a) After/before I was singing, he listened = After/before I sang, he
listened (punctual, momentary).

b) While I was singing, he listened = While I sang, he listened
(non-punctual, durative).

3) considering the 'habitual' an aspect when it is simply a grammatical form
in some languages to more emphatically bring out the repetition of an event
in a certain tense without implying its duration:

a) which can be punctual ('I always sneeze') or non-punctual ('I always
sing'), momentary, ('I always sneezed when I smelled it'), or durative ('I
always sneezed as long as I smelled it'); and, contrary to Comrie/Trask, in
any tense ('I always sneezed'; 'I am always to sneeze', etc.).

[LA]
> A solution is not available to us yet in the current problem,
> JUST AS we cannot "fix" the problem that what is called "passive"
> in the grammar of one language does not match exactly what is called
> "passive" in the grammar of some other language.  It is no one's
> fault that such is the case, languages differ, and yet we cannot
> have an infinite number of distinct terminologies, for they would
> then do us no good.  We have to be satisfied with partial overlaps
> of reference.  Some grammatical traditions call "passive" what
> is more properly called "middle voice".  That is one of the more
> extreme cases, and we cannot make it vanish.

[PR]
The solution is available --- to initiate a rational and appropriate
terminology with definitions that can be discriminatorily applied.

[LA]
> I am a firm advocate of not deviating from common sense and
> ordinary usage of language.  I even avoid using "phonemic system"
> because "system" is sufficient to imply structure, so I normally
> use "sound system".  So much for merely one example of my
> aversion to elitist perfectionism, or fancier terminology than
> is necessary to make clear distinctions.

> HOWEVER...

> Any solution for perfective / imperfective
> is much more difficult than Pat Ryan yet imagines,
> because Pat does not distinguish between how a speaker chooses
> to regard a situation in the discourse of the moment (what
> the universal /typological grammarians call perfective/imperfective)
> from how we might characterize a real-world event
> (as lasting in time or as compact in time, what the universal/typological
> grammarians often call punctual vs. durative, or terms with
> similar meanings).  There is a need to distinguish these two
> concepts, whatever one calls them.  Pat's proposed "solution"
> is to not distinguish them.  That is no solution, it is simply wishing
> the problem would go away.  We need BOTH concepts in careful
> treatments of the grammar of one and the same language.

[PR]
I hope I have cleared up above any misunderstanding of my position.

[LA]
> THIS DISTINCTION IS CRUCIAL

> The fact that this distinction is not often carefully made
> (as it has not been made by Pat Ryan) is part of the source for
> terminological dilemmas (of the sort Comrie noted).

> In a message dated 9/15/99 3:20:32 AM, proto-language at email.msn.com writes:

>> I can interpret Comrie's Gothic definition myself: I interpret *his*
>> "perfective" to mean: 'a verbal action characterized as a point in time';
>> and *his* "imperfective" to mean: 'a verbal action characterized as points
>> in time'.

> If one reads "characterized as" in two different meanings,
> one gets the two different concepts,
> one perfective vs. imperfective (discourse treatment by the speaker),
> the other punctual (or momentary) vs. durative
> (more lexical, referring to real-world events as types of
> what is called "Aktionsart", not to how speakers treat them
> in discourse structure in terms of background and foreground).

[PR]
I hope I have demonstrated above that I *do* and *have* made the
distinction; I do not confuse discourse setting and Aktionsart.

[LA]

[ moderator snip ]

>> Lloyd expressed it much better, when he said: "It is crucial to carefully
>> keep the difference between EVENTS (as they actually are in reality) and
>> ASPECTUAL REFERENCES (which reflect how they are conceived by speakers).
>> Aspectual references are partly independent of any real-world nature of
>> events, they are partly free choices made by the speaker.

>> This is, I believe, the crux of the question, and a point of view completely
>> overlooked and misunderstood by Comrie though there may be hope for Larry.

> But I am puzzled why Pat thinks Comrie and Trask do not understand it.
> I believe they make approximately the same distinction I was expressing.

[PR]
I do not believe one can really interpret the Trask/Comrie definition *at
all*, let alone to correspond with your definition.

[LA]
> Pat gives the example of an imperfective (iterative)
> "He was sneezing all the way home".
> But that is not the most important reason why "sneeze" can be given an
> imperfective treatment.
> Nor is it because it is predominantly atelic (as Pat correctly notes):

[PR previously]
>> Although one could think of sneezing as telic (getting something out of
>> one's nose by forceful release of air), generally, it would be understood as
>> atelic, hence, it must be imperfective.

[LA]
> The "hence, it must be imperfective" does not follow from its being atelic.
> In fact, it is most usually treated as a perfective (unless iterative),
> if one means "to give a sneeze" rather than "to continue sneezing again and
> again".

[PR]
Lloyd, I am using 'imperfective' in my sense not in the Comriean
definitional sense.

[LA]
> Rather, "sneeze" can be treated as imperfective
> because it can occur in a context like this:

> "While John was sneezing, the lights went out."

> Since a SINGLE sneeze (not necessarily iterative)
> can take a longer time than the lights going out,
> the sneezing can be reasonably treated as a background,
> having internal parts over time, in relation to
> the lights going out which can be treated as the foreground,
> without internal temporal structure.

[PR]
'treated as a background, have internal parts over time': this, to me, is a
definition that could very well belong to 'durative'; and I would analyze
the above sentence as a verb employed in a durative context, the Aktionsart
of which is iterative, a serial punctual verbak notion, and the English
progressive form has been attached to emphasize the duration of the event as
background for another contemporal event.

[LA]
> Such cases are not common,
> but they are evidence that punctual and perfective are not the same
> KINDS of concepts.

Pat

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