Continuous vs. Repetitive inflection in ASL

[becker]

>From: becker at ling.ucsd.edu
>Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 01:32:52 +0000
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Macintosh; I; 68K)
>To: becker <rbecker at popmail.ucsd.edu>
>Subject: Re: Continuous vs. Repetitive inflection in ASL
>
I wanted to thank people for their responses so far and perhaps clarify my
original question, even though most of what I was looking for has been
touched on in some way.
What I am interested in are scopes of time, or time limits that are
inherent semantically to certain verbs and how they match up with
inflections for temporal aspect.

For example, the verb 'flash' is understood as something that occurs within
a short span of time.
If I were to sign something like:
LIGHT FLASH-CONT
would it be grammatical? (the native signers I have asked say "no")

Next, with a verb like 'kill' which is also perceived as having a limited
time scope, although not necessarily of short duration if I sign the
original sentences I proposed (minus the past tense- oops)

>1. HE KILL-CONT
>2.HE KILL-REP

Are they basically the same semantically with respect to time - since we
must understand the continual inflection to have starts and stops in it,
because of the meaning added by the verb itself.
I think it is helpful to see that in context which one might be chosen over
another and what those situations are, but I guess I am trying to figure
out what might be understood if just the sentences above were produced out
of context. In other words, what limitations does the meaning of the verb
itself impose on the inflections.

Another consideration related to this are stative verbs like 'know'
and 'like' and their interaction with these same inflections

Thanks

Robin Becker