Perfective-Imperfective (2) - Habitual

[Larry Trask]

On Mon, 27 Sep 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

Well, I've withdrawn from this general discussion, but Pat here raises a
point deserving brief consideration.

> In my dialect, 'Lisa smokes' means simply 'Lisa currently smokes'
> and might be applied to Lisa if she smokes currently once in a very
> great while, barely qualifying as 'habitual'; 'Lisa always smokes'
> stresses the habituality; and I agree, it would be oftener found
> with a complement but would 'Lisa always smokes now' be equally
> strange to your conversational repertoire?

Well, `Lisa always smokes now' sounds perhaps a bit more natural than
`Lisa always smokes', but it still seems to require a very carefully
developed context in order to be natural.  In isolation, it's
unacceptable.

However, I query the rest, which raises a familiar point, discussed by
Comrie in his book: how often does an action have to be performed in
order to be habitual?  There can, of course, be no absolute answer to
this: habitual actions just shade off into occasional actions, with no
sharp dividing line.

Take a real case.  My friend Alex never buys or carries cigarettes, and
she normally doesn't smoke at all, but every once in a while -- maybe
once a week at most, generally less often -- she accepts a cigarette
when she's with friends who are smoking.

Now: does Alex smoke?  I would say she doesn't, but possibly not
everybody has the same intuition.  Next time I see Alex, I'll try to
remember to ask her if she smokes.  My guess is that she'll say "no",
or, at best, "once in a while".  I'll be very surprised if she says
"yes".

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk