Aktionsart

The aktionsart (pronounced|ʔakˈʦi̯oːnsˌʔaɐ̯t, plural "aktionsarten" IPA| [ʔakˈʦi̯oːnsˌʔaɐ̯tn̩] ) or lexical aspect of a verb is a part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. Any event, state, process, or action a verb expresses—collectively, any "eventuality"—may also be said to have the same aktionsart. Lexical aspect should be distinguished from grammatical aspect: lexical aspect is an inherent property of an eventuality. Grammatical aspect is a property of a specific verb form. Lexical aspect is invariant, while grammatical aspect can be changed according to the whims of the speaker.

For example, "eat an apple" differs from "sit" in that there is a natural endpoint or conclusion to eating an apple. There is a time at which the eating is finished, completed, or all done. By contrast, sitting can merely stop: unless we add more details, it makes no sense to say that someone "finished" sitting. This is a distinction of lexical aspect between the two verbs. Verbs that have natural endpoints are called "telic" (from Ancient Greek "telos", end); those without are called "atelic".

Zeno Vendler (1957) classified verbs into four categories: those that express ‘activity’, ‘accomplishment’, ‘achievement’ and ‘state’. Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from achievements and states in that the former allow the use of continuous tenses. Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from each other by boundedness: activities do not have a terminal point (a point before which the activity cannot be said to have taken place, and after which the activity cannot continue – for example ‘John drew a circle’) whereas accomplishments do. Of achievements and states, achievements are instantaneous whereas states are durative.

In his discussion of Aktionsarten, Bernard Comrie (1976) included the category ‘semelfactive’. His divisions of the categories are as follows: states, activities, and accomplishments are durative, while 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 exemplifies examples of Aktionsart in English that involve change (an example of a State is 'know').

ee also

*Grammatical aspect
*Predicate
*Telicity

References

*Binnick, R. I. (1991) "Time and the Verb: A Guide to Tense & Aspect". Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506206-X
*Comrie, B. (1976) "Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21109-3
*Vendler, Z. (1957) "Verbs and Times", The Philosophical Review 66:143-60. ISSN 0031-8108

Further reading

*De Swart, H. and Verkuyl, H. (1999) "Tense and Aspect in Sentence and Discourse". Reader, ESSLLI summer school, Utrecht. Aug. 9-13, 1999.
*Moens, M. (1987) "Tense, Aspect and Temporal Reference". PhD Thesis, Centre for Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh.
*Smith, C. S. (1997) "The Parameter of Aspect" (2nd ed). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
*Verkuyl, H. J. (1993) "A Theory of Aspectuality: The interaction between temporal and atemporal structure". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.