VERBAL PREFIXES, GOAL PHRASES, AND THE DELIMITATION OF EVENTS: A STUDY OF THE ASPECTUALLY RESTRICTED AND UNRESTRICTED (PARTITIVE) GENITIVE IN POLISH

• Authors: Willim E.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper addresses the role that the (non)-quantizedness ot the direct argument of a verbal predicate plays in the computation of the aspectual interpretation of a VP-predicate and the clause in Polish in comparison with English. Two classes ot verbs combining with bare mass or plural direct arguments in Polish are analysed here, distinuguished by whether genitive case morphology is disallowed on the direct argument in the imperfective aspect, or is not aspectually restricted in its distribution. The former class is illustrated here with 'zjesc (P) truskawki' - ACC / 'truskawek' - GEN (to eat strawberries) and argued here that direct arguments marked with genitive case morphology are quantitativly indeterminate in Polish. Verbal predicates combining with the direct argument in the genitive represent the incorporating variant of the transitive/unaccusative verb. Eventualities in the denotation of verbal predicates belonging to the former class will be analysed as terminated activities, i.e. proccsses rather than accomplishiments decomposable into process and the result parts. Predicates belonging to the latter class encode a resultant subevent in their semantics regardless whether the direct argument is in the accusative or in the genitive. This follows from the fact that such predicates specify the achievement of the filling/covering relation. The analysis presented here thus speaks against the claims that the perfective aspect resolves the quantitative indeterminacy of the direct argument in Slavic and offers support for a linguistic level dealing with lexical aspect alongside the level at which grammatical aspect is analysed.

Keywords

EN

FILLING RELATIONS; PREDICATE-LEVEL PERFERCTIVITY; PROPOSITIONAL-LEVEL PERFECTIVITY

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Instytut Języka Polskiego Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Studies in Polish Linguistics
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 19-48
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Willim E.

• E. Willim, Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Instytut Filologii Angielskiej, al. Mickiewicza 9/11, 31-120 Kraków, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA02404989