Lithuanian reflexive-based impersonals with accusative objects

This paper surveys Lithuanian impersonal constructions with predicative present passive participles containing non-promoted accusative objects. It is shown that the construction, hitherto considered very rare, is well-attested and productive with one verb class, namely, transitive reflexives. In terms of semantics, transitive reflexives in Lithuanian may be classified as autobenefactives. Autobenefactive reflexives do not exhibit a change in argument structure with respect to their non-reflexive counterparts. In the case of autobenefactives, the morpheme -si- attached to the verb adds the meaning that the subject, which mostly has the semantic role of an agent, benefits from the event expressed by the predicate. On the basis of corpus data, we have analysed how widespread impersonal constructions with accusative objects are within the domain of transitive reflexives and which pattern—the accusative or the nominative—is dominant when both are attested. Lastly, we briefly discuss the temporal-aspectual meaning of reflexive-based impersonals as well as the referential properties of implied agents

Between spatial domain and grammatical meaning: The semantic content of English telic particles

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that English spatial particles which have grammaticalised into telic aspectualisers are not devoid of the image schematic content, which motivates their use in specific contexts. Because aspectual meaning, including telicity, is compositional in nature, which means that it frequently results from the interaction of several linguistic features, it is vital to single out those predicates in which the telicity effect can be attributed solely to the particle, not any other elements of the construction. This can be implemented by adopting the scalar approach, which shows that telicity is entailed by the particle exclusively in a predicate containing an incremental theme verb. Accordingly, the incremental theme verb burn and its five telic particles (up, down, out, off and away) constitute the subject of investigation. The analysis demonstrates that each particle encodes telicity in terms of reaching the GOAL in the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema. Conceptual differences in encoding the termination of the burning process result from topological properties of the path construed by each particle under study.

Verbal complexes in Thai

This chapter investigates the serial verb constructions (SVC) in Thai, where the predicate takes the structure [V1 NP1 V2 (NP2)]. Focusing on a type of two-component SVC in which one component verb is the head and the other the modifier, we attempt to pinpoint those SVCs that correspond semantically to the Indian-type vector compound verbs, differentiating them from the Chinese-type resultative serial verbs. The V2 verbs, which are drawn from a limited set of verbs, modify the main verbs in V1 in terms of grammatical aspectual meanings or pragmatic meanings. The grammatical aspectual meaning of V2 is a part of the propositional meaning of the verbal complex and is relatively easy to identify. Most V2s in Thai verbal complexes modify V1s in terms of pragmatic specifications, which are rather difficult to spell out, and can be omitted without affecting the propositional meaning. These V2s are considered analogous to vector verbs.

A CONTRASTIVE ACCOUNT OF PHASE VERBS BEGIN AND START IN ENGLISH AND SERBIAN

The paper focuses on contrastive semantics of phase verbs or aspectualizers in English and Serbian, taking into account both typical and atypical phase verbs. Following Piper (Piper et al. 2005), we adopt the class of atypical aspectalizers in Serbian which are primarily lexical verbs but yield an aspectual meaning when combined with an aspectual complement. We specifically consider phase verbs BEGIN and START in English and their Serbian equivalents POČETI and KRENUTI. Alternatively to both traditional and more contemporary linguistic approaches to phase verbs in English and Serbian, we claim that the true overall linguistic equivalent of the English phase verb START is not Serbian phase verb POČETI, but another, atypical aspectualizer KRENUTI. We base this claim on the equivalency of contrastive syntactic complementation of the inspected aspectualizers, as well as their argument structure, taking into account Freed’s (Freed 1979: 31) traditional view of the aspectual event, where the event is segmental, containing the onset, the nucleus, and the coda. Freed’s account is combined with the lexical-projectionist model proposed by Levin (Levin 1993) alongside the grammar of constructions (Goldberg 1995, 2006). Additionally, alternatively to the generally accepted claim that all phase verbs in Serbian as a rule take imperfective verbs as their complements (Ivić 1970: 44), we claim that KRENUTI with additional, phase-related meanings frequently and productively allows for perfec- tive complementation. The present analysis is backed up by a parallel corpus of English and Serbian sentences compiled from the British National Corpus, the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and the Corpus of Contemporary Serbian Language.

Thinking for speaking in the right aspect

In this article we focus on the category of aspect and examine modern English grammars to see whether they give sufficient guidelines to the learner on how aspectual meanings are decoded and encoded in English. More precisely, we check whether the grammars reflect the abundant linguistic research on aspectual construal in English. Out of a number of components that play a role in the shaping of aspectual meaning, we look at the following four: lexical aspect, arguments, grammatical aspect, and tense. An overview is first made of the key theoretical findings on the impact of these four components on aspectual interpretation, followed by an analysis of the grammar content on the given components. Our conclusion is that only two comprehensive grammars we examined take into account the results of linguistic research on aspect to a certain extent and that there is a lot of room for improvement.

Serial Verb Constructions

In a serial verb construction (SVC), two or more verbs combine in a single clause without any morphosyntactic marking of linking or subordination. However, the way in which different linguists interpret and diagnose this description is a continual source of controversy. There are different assumptions about the nature of verbhood and clausehood as well as disagreements over how to interpret morphosyntactic marking in particular languages. Despite the fuzzy nature of the category, SVCs are often found to have similar functions in many languages—for example, to express closely linked sequences of events; to indicate directional and prior motion; to show concurrent aspects of a single event, such as posture, alongside another activity; and to express particular semantic roles or aspectual meaning. The morphosyntactic complexity and diversity found in SVCs continue to challenge conceptions of the clause that are assumed in both generative and comparative approaches to syntax. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 7 is January 14, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Competition of Verb Aspects and Its Resolution as a Creative Act (Based on the Material of Aspects Variants in the Texts by F. M. Dostoevsky)

The article considers the competition of verbal aspects from a new perspective. Instead of employing the traditional method of demonstrating this phenomenon — an empirical replacement of the aspect of a verb in a phrase with the opposite — the author examines Dostoevsky’s choice between the variants found in different manuscripts of the same text. For the first time, based on a two-component theory of the semantic invariant of a verb type, the aspectual meaning of the selection of a verb aspect is revealed and, as a result of contextual analysis, an artistic interpretation of the selected type is proposed.