Bozhesku M.H.
Bukovina
State Academy of Finance, Chernivtsi, Ukraine
Aspectology can be
defined as a domain of linguistics, referring to the grammatical structure and
semantics of the language; it studies the category of verb aspect, and in a broader
sense, the whole “sphere of aspectuality”, – a large domain of the language,
which includes, besides the aspect, other phenomena, similar to, or related to
aspect in terms of meaning and functions [3].
The semantic definition of the category
of aspect and distinguishing it from other verbal categories can be formulated
in the following way: the aspect points to “the way in which the “action”
(“event”, “phenomenon”, “situation”, “state”, etc.), denoted by the verb,
passes in time or is distributed in time” [4]. The aspect, accordingly, is
related to the notion of tense, but, in contrast to the category of the verb
tense, it deals not with the deictic temporal localization of the denoted
“action”, but with its inner temporal structure, in the manner that the speaker
understands it. B. Comrie (1976)
defines the aspect as different ways of considering the inner temporal design
of the situation. The aspect reflects the “assessment” of the temporal
structure of the action by the speaker. Thus, not being a deictic category, the
aspect belongs to both subjective and objective category, which defines the
point of view, from which the objective extra linguistic reality is considered
in language forms.
The category of aspect in different
languages is characterized not only by a variety of its outer forms of
expression, but also (and that is particularly significant) by a considerable
variety of its inner content. According to B.O. Serebriannikov [6] “the
complexity of the problem of grammatical aspect lies, first of all, in the fact
that unlike the category of tense, this category has several foundations which
are not similar in their nature and essence. … the category of verb aspect is
based on a certain sum of action features, and each of them needs special
consideration”.
Considering the category of aspect in
English, it is necessary to distinguish it from the category of aspect in
Slavic languages. The Slavic aspect is expressed with the help of pairs of
correlating verbs. The aspect in English – if we accept the views supported by
many researchers as to the aspectual nature of Continuous and Perfect tenses – is
expressed by the word change of the same verb, therewith the word change of a
special nature, i.e. analytical forms of the verb.
While analyzing the category of aspect
it should be distinguished not only from the verbal aspect, but also from the
functional and semantic category of taxis. Taxis (from Greek meaning structure, order, arrangement) is the
tense correlation between actions (in the broad sense, including any types of
predicates): simultaneity / non-simultaneity, ceasing, the relations between
the primary and secondary actions, etc. [1, p. 503]. Within a speech act, the
question is not about a separate action (state etc.), but about several
actions, which are in some manner interrelated (chronologically, cause –
effect, contrast relations, etc). These relations are reflected by specific
relations between the predicates – relations which form the category of taxis. The term “taxis” was first
suggested by R. Jakobson who defined it in the following way: “taxis
characterizes the fact which is being referred to, concerning another fact
which is being referred to, without any relation to the moment of reference” [7,
с. 14].
By aspectuality we mean the semantic
categorial property “the nature of passing and distribution of the action in
time” [4, p. 105] and, at the same
time a group of functional and semantic fields united by this property. A.V.
Bondarko defines aspectuality as “a functional and semantic field, made up by
interacting language means (morphological, syntactic, word building,
lexico-grammatical, lexical and their various combinations in the context), joined
by the unity of semantic functions, belonging to the domain of aspectual
relations, i.e. relations, the content of which is in the nature of the
action’s passing in time” [2, с. 76].
The notion of aspectuality is closely
connected to what G. Guillaume called “inner tense” (in contrast to “outer
tense” – the relation of action to the moment of speaking or some other
starting point) [8, с. 47-48]. According to R. Referovskaia “… any action, in spite of its duration,
contains a certain degree of “operational” time. The idea of time is reflected
in the consciousness of people in the form of action – process – duration. Such
“tense” of an action is an inseparable feature, its inherent characteristic
feature and is its inner tense” [5, p. 91]. Aspectuality includes such characteristics of
passing and distribution of an action in time as limitation/non-limitation by a
borderline, presence/absence of an inner limit, representing an action as a
passing process or a limited integral fact, iterativity, duration, singling out
a certain phase of an action, relevance of an action’s consequences for the
following tense plane (perfectivity), the difference between an action per se,
a state and a correlation. All these characteristics, in this or that way,
reveal the structure of an action’s “inner tense”.
Depending upon the objective of the
research, aspectuality can be regarded as a single field or a cluster of
functional and semantic fields. The second option allows to consider the
peculiarities of the semantics and structural organization of separate
subsystems within the wide range of aspectual relations in a more
differentiated and explicit manner.
The differentiation of aspectuality presupposes
the integration of separate fields which were singled out. This integration is
stipulated not only by their invariant categorial features, but also by
contrasting aspectuality as a whole to temporality, modality and other
functional and semantic fields. This cluster includes such fields as:
limitation (a field which encompasses different types of relations of the
action to its limit), duration, iterativity, phase sequence, perfectivity, the
field of action, the field of the state, the field of relations.
The semantic center of aspectuality and,
at the same time, the center of formal means of expressing aspectual relations
is verbal predicate. On the other hand, the elements of aspectuality can go
beyond the borders of the predicate, spreading out to other parts of utterance.
It refers, in particular, to adverbial modifiers. The predicative and adverbial
modifier features of aspectual relations combine in the structure of the predicative
complex, which includes the predicate (the nucleus of the complex) and all
elements of the utterance that characterize it. Other language means that
participate in expressing aspectuality (except adverbial modifiers),
particularly conjunctions and particles, also group around verb predicates and
have direct relation to their characterization and system organization within
the utterance. In any case, the verb predicate forms the center, the dominant
of aspectual relations.
Concluding, in a language the aspectual, temporal and taxis meanings are closely interrelated and appear as components of one complex semantic whole. Certain meanings of the action’s passing and distribution in time are expressed by aspectual categories of many languages, but in different languages these meaning are realized in different ways. The sphere of extension of aspectuality is extremely wide but that does not make it universal. Aspectual characterization is mandatory only for the utterances with verbal predicates. Aspectual relations beyond theses predicates are possible but not obligatory.
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