Abstract
English offers a consistent, obligatory choice of viewpoints, although aspectual forms are not salient in the language. There is one perfective and two imperfective viewpoints; choice between them is obligatory in all tenses. The perfective viewpoint is available for the full range of situation types and is therefore the dominant viewpoint in the language. This viewpoint is distinctive among languages because its aspectual value varies with situation type. The English perfective presents events as closed and statives as open, according to the temporal schema associated with each. The progressive is the main imperfective viewpoint. It is available neutrally for non-stative sentences. There is also a rather limited resultative imperfective, which appears with verb constellations of the position and location classes. Viewpoint is indicated by the presence or absence of a verbal auxiliary.1
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Notes
English has been under study for a long time, and its viewpoint system has been much discussed. The insights of traditional grammarian Jespersen 1931 are essential; Kruisinga 1925, Poutsma 1928, and Curme 1935 have useful comments and examples. Structuralists Joos 1964 and Twaddell 1965 discuss the distribution and force of the viewpoints. Much work in the semantics of aspect focusses primarily on English in discussing both situation type and viewpoint; cf Ryle 1947, Vendler 1967, Dowty 1977, Taylor 1978, Vlach 1980. Other references are given throughout the Chapter. I use the system of English throughout Part I for comments and examples; material covered already is presented without extensive discussion here.
Although English has no neutral viewpoint, the semantic value of statives is strikingly similar to that of statives with the neutral viewpoint statives in Chinese and Navajo. Both are open informationally.
The literature on Achievements contains some contradictory statements about whether they allow the progressive viewpoint. Vendler 1967 claims that they do not allow it. The claim is of course a reasonable one, based on the temporal schema of Achievements; but it is falsified by sentences like 9a and 9b, which were cited rather quickly by other scholars.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Smith, C.S. (1991). The Aspectual System of English Introductory Characterization. In: The Parameter of Aspect. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7911-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7911-7_8
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