36.1816, Books: The present perfective paradox: Koss (2025)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1816. Wed Jun 11 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1816, Books: The present perfective paradox: Koss (2025)

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Date: 10-Jun-2025
From: Jan Martin [lotdissertations-fgw at uva.nl]
Subject: The present perfective paradox: Koss (2025)


Title: The present perfective paradox
Subtitle: A typological study of present-time markers
Series Title: LOT Dissertation Series
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke
(LOT)
           http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Book URL:
https://www.lotpublications.nl/the-present-perfective-paradox

Author(s): Tom Koss

Paperback
ISBN: 978-94-6093-476-6
Pages: 456
€48.00

Abstract:

The term present perfective paradox refers to the following
phenomenon: in a given language, there is a tense marker which is used
to report on the ongoing present when it combines with stative verbs.
With dynamic verbs, in turn, this tense marker refers to something
else than the ongoing present - to the future, to the past, or to a
habit. English and its simple present tense represent a well-known
example. The simple present refers to the ongoing present with stative
verbs: I have my laptop with me right now. But it cannot be used to
report on the ongoing present with dynamic verbs: *I run to the bus
station right now. What the simple present can express with dynamic
verbs is a habitually reoccurring situation: I run to the bus station
every morning. A similar thing happens in Slavic languages such as
Polish and Russian.
It has been unclear until now whether this pattern can also be found
outside of the well-studied languages of Europe, and if so, to what
extent. This dissertation represents the first large-scale
cross-linguistic study of the present perfective paradox,
investigating a sample of 180 unrelated languages from all over the
world. It is shown how investigating the cross-linguistic
manifestation of this phenomenon provides more general insights into,
among others, the way in which tense and time reference interact in
the world’s languages, how different types of situations are construed
linguistically through verbal morphology, and how grammar and
epistemicity are related to each other.

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics




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