Editing Lexical aspect

{{Short description|Semantic way in which a verb is structured in relation to time}}
{{distinguish|Grammatical aspect}}
{{Grammatical categories}}
{{Update|date=July 2019|1=work since the 2000s}}

In [[linguistics]], the '''lexical aspect''', '''situation type''' or '''Aktionsart''' ({{IPA|de|ʔakˈtsi̯oːnsˌʔaːɐ̯t}}, plural ''Aktionsarten'' {{IPA|[ʔakˈtsi̯oːnsˌʔaːɐ̯tn̩]}}) of an event is part of the way in which that event is structured in relation to [[time]]. For example, the [[English language|English]] verbs ''arrive'' and ''run'' differ in their lexical aspect since the former describes an event which [[Telicity|has a natural endpoint]] while the latter does not. Lexical aspect differs from [[grammatical aspect]] in that it is an inherent [[semantic property]] of a [[Predicate (grammar)|predicate]], while grammatical aspect is a [[Syntax|syntactic]] or [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] property. Although lexical aspect need not be marked morphologically, it has downstream grammatical effects, for instance that ''arrive'' can be modified by "in an hour" while ''believe'' cannot.

==Theories of aspectual class==
Although all theories of lexical aspect recognize that verbs divide into different classes, the details of the classification differ. An early attempt by Vendler recognized four classes, which has been modified several times.

===Vendler's classification===
[[Zeno Vendler]] classified verbs into four categories on whether they express "activity", "accomplishment", "achievement" or "state". Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from achievements and states in that the first two allow the use of [[continuous and progressive aspects]].  Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from each other by boundedness. Activities do not have a terminal point (a point before which the activity has taken place and after which it cannot continue: "John drew a circle"), but accomplishments have one. Of achievements and states, achievements are instantaneous, but states are durative. Achievements and accomplishments are distinguished from one another in that achievements take place immediately (such as in "recognise" or "find"), but accomplishments approach an endpoint incrementally (as in "paint a picture" or "build a house").<ref name="alonidekkerrothstein">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Rothstein |first1=Susan|editor-last1=Aloni |editor-first1=Maria |editor1-link=Maria Aloni|editor-last2=Dekker |editor-first2=Paul |encyclopedia=Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics |title=Aspect |year=2016 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02839-5}}</ref><ref name="Vendler">{{cite journal |last1=Vendler |first1=Zeno|date=1957 |title=Verbs and Times|journal=The Philosophical Review |volume=66 |issue=2|pages=143–160 |doi=10.2307/2182371|url=https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesp/content/courses/cs216-2009/readings2009/Vendler-LOT.pdf|jstor=2182371}}</ref>

===Comrie's classification===
In his discussion of lexical aspect, [[Bernard Comrie]] included the category [[semelfactive]] or punctual events such as "sneeze". His divisions of the categories were as follows: states, activities, and accomplishments are durative, but semelfactives and achievements are punctual. Of the durative verbs, states are unique as they involve no change, and activities are atelic (that is, have no "terminal point") whereas accomplishments are telic. Of the punctual verbs, semelfactives are atelic, and achievements are telic. The following table shows examples of lexical aspect in English that involve change (an example of a state is 'know').<ref name = "alonidekkerrothstein" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Comrie |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Comrie |date=1976 |title=Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn= 9784838401000|series=Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
!
!Punctual
!Durative
|-
!Telic
|Achievement<br/>(''to release'')
|Accomplishment<br/>(''to drown'')
|-
! Atelic
|Semelfactive<br/>(''to knock'')
|Activity<br/>(''to walk'')
|-
! Static
|
| State<br/>(''to know'')
|}

===Moens and Steedman's classification===
Another classification is proposed by Moens and Steedman, based on the idea of the event nucleus.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Temporal ontology and temporal reference|author1-first=Marc|author1-last=Moens|author2-first=Mark|author2-last=Steedman|author2-link=Mark Steedman|date = 1988|volume=14|issue=2|journal = Computational Linguistics|url=https://aclanthology.org/J88-2003.pdf|issn=0362-613X|pages=15–28|publisher=Association for Computational Linguistics}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
!
! colspan="3" |Event nucleus
|-
!
!Preparatory
phase
!Culminating
event
!Consequent
phase
|-
|Semelfactive
|
|style="background-color:green;"|
|
|-
|State
|
|
|style="background-color:green;"|
|-
|Activity
|style="background-color:green;"|
|
|
|-
|Achievement
|
|colspan="2" style="background-color:green;"|
|-
|Accomplishment
|colspan="3" style="background-color:green;"|
|}

==Syntactic analyses of event structure ==
Aspectual classes can be analyzed as differing in their event structure, and this has led to the development of syntactic analyses of event structure, with each aspectual class treated as having a distinct syntactic structure.

==See also==
* [[Predicate (grammar)|Predicate]]
* [[Syntax–semantics interface]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Grammatical aspects}}
{{Formal semantics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lexical Aspect}}
[[Category:Grammar]]
[[Category:Time in linguistics]]
[[Category:Syntax–semantics interface]]

[[fr:Aspect lexical]]