This experimental study brings evidence from second language acquisition (L2A) to bear on a theoretical issue that has been called into question by native speaker judgments: the semantic effect Russian perfective prefixes have on object interpretation. In perfective sentences, article-less bare plural and mass objects are interpreted as denoting a specific quantity. Russian native speakers do n...

Case in Lotha, (a Tibeto-Burman language spoken Wokha District of Nagaland) is marked by suffixes that appear to the right noun it marks. In Lotha ergative marker can combine with both nouns and pronouns, however, nominative markers only occur pronouns. has aspectual split ergativity which word class (noun vs. pronoun), aspect, tense are determining factors. The occurs mainly A argument a trans...

1. Outline of the argument The puzzle of English until is well-known. Karttunen 1974 argues that until is ambiguous between a durative and a punctual negative polarity (NPI) meaning. Mittwoch 1977 claims that there is no ambiguity and that the two meanings are due to scope differences: NPI-until is in fact until above negation. Mittwoch's account relies crucially on the assumption that negation...

It is claimed in the literature that the perfective marker -guo has the following semantic properties: discontinuity, repeatability/reversibility, and partiality, which contrast with the continuation and totality properties of the perfective marker -le. Previous analyses adopt a purely semantic approach to account for the above properties of -guo and -le, and the role played by pragmatics is no...

In this paper we propose a unified account of ergativity in two unrelated languages with very different systems of marking grammatical relations. Both Chol (Mayan, Mexico) and Mẽbengokre (Jê, Brazil) have what appear to be aspect-based ergative splits. However, while in Mẽbengokre ergativity is found in verb stems which are formally nominal, ergativity in Chol is found in what can be shown to b...

To analyze crossdialectal variation between the use of a Present Perfect form (Pretérito Perfecto Compuesto) and Perfective Past Indefinido) in Spanish, we make two converging methodologies: (i) parallel corpus research, where compare different translations same text (Harry Potter Philosopher’s Stone) into specific standardized written varieties Spanish (Peninsular, Mexican, Argentinian), (ii) ...

There are a handful of semantic concepts that serve an organizing function within the grammar. The over-arching goal of this research program is to examine the conceptual origins of these concepts (cf. Wagner & Lakusta, in press): To what extent is the infant mind specially prepared to acquire the natural semantics of language? One of these core concepts is Aspect, and the specific goal of this...

A widely adopted classification of aspectual type is that based on Vendler’s (1967) four-way aspectual classification of verbs into accomplishments, achievements, activities and statives. Moreover, some have assumed, either explicitly or implicitly, that this aspectual classification is universal (see, for instance, Borer 2005, Krifka 1992, Filip 1999). That is, each language has predicates tha...

The Chinese negation marker bu ‘not’ is analyzed as a clitic-like element in the literature (Huang 1988; Ernst 1995; etc.) in order to explain why it cannot co-occur with (i) the perfective marker -le or (ii) manner phrases in the V-de construction. Huang (1988) assumes that bu must cliticize onto auxiliaries/modals or the following verb, and since bu cliticizing directly to a verb induces a ‘‘...

The article addresses verbal aspect in the acquisition of Latvian as a foreign language. textbooks both and other languages, well Japanese learners’ writings are analysed to explore this topic. main issue is use verbs expressing aspectual opposition perfective / imperfective, inchoative stative, Aktionsart prefixed verbs. Verbal an implicit category. It one few categories described grammars but...