[Lingtyp] once again about perfective vs. imperfective aspect

[Juergen Bohnemeyer]

Dear Sergey – Every utterance has aspectual reference, regardless of whether that aspectual reference is constrained by a functional expression (an aspect marker) or not. Therefore, *semantically*, a dynamic event description, regardless of tense, necessarily has either imperfective/progressive reference, perfective reference, perfect = post-state/time reference, prospective = pre-state/time reference, habitual reference, or generic reference. Those are the logical possibilities. (Dynamic b/c state descriptions are more or less inherently imperfective.)  – Best – Juergen

Bohnemeyer, J. (2023). Elicitation and documentation of tense and aspect. Language Documentation and Conservation 26: 59-98. PDF attached.



Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Sergey Loesov via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Sunday, July 27, 2025 at 11:20
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Lingtyp] once again about perfective vs. imperfective aspect
Dear colleagues,
Please allow me a naïve question: do we believe in a one-feature binary opposition of “perfective” vs. “imperfective” aspect in languages that, unlike English (e.g., yesterday he wrote ~ yesterday he was writing) or Spanish (ayer escribió ~ ayer estaba escribiendo), do not exhibit a clear-cut morphological distinction of this kind within the same tense, if I may put it as simply as possible?
Thank you very much!
Sergey
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