Functional Grammar
Aspect and Aspectuality. Tense and Temporality.
Essays in honour of Alexander Bondarko
Adrian Barentsen & Youri Poupynin (eds.)
The articles in this collection discuss various problems in areas of linguistics towards which important contributions have been made by the distinguished Russian linguist A.V. Bondarko to whom the book is dedicated.
Three groups of articles can be distinguished. The first group concerns the sphere of aspectuality – Aspect and Aktionsart. Comments on the relation between these two concepts are given by Comrie. One also finds here a discussion of the use of verbs of several lexico-grammatical classes: the multiplicative and semelfactive Aktionsart (Birjulin) and non-actional verbs of existence (Voeikova). Various aspects of the reciprocal meaning are discussed: in a general typological perspective (Geniušen and Nedjalkov) and in relation to Russian reflexive verbs (Knjazev). (These articles can be classified in the first group because of the existence of a reciprocal Aktionsart.)
In the second group questions of the functioning of verbal categories are examined. In the articles by Lehmann and Tommola special attention is given to the interaction between the category of aspect and aspectually significant elements of the context. Mehlig discusses some problems from the sphere of the so-called general-factual meaning of the imperfective and Poupynin deals with the problem of invariancy with regard to the passive variety of the perfective.
The third group of articles is dedicated to the field of taxis, i.e. phenomena on the intersection of aspectuality and temporality. A general discussion of taxis, its definition and typological questions is given by Xrakovsky. The narrative functions of the imperfective aspect are studied by Kozintseva. Zorikhina-Nilsson presents a contrastive analysis of some functions of the Russian perfective gerund and its equivalents in Swedish and Barentsen discusses problems of temporal relations in complex sentences with verbs of perception.
List of authors: A. Barentsen (Amsterdam), L.A. Birjulin (Helsinki), B. Comrie (Leipzig), E. Geniušien (Vilnius), V.P. Nedjalkov (St. Petersburg), Ju.P. Knjazev (Novgorod), N.A. Kozintseva (St. Petersburg), V. Lehmann (Hamburg), H.R. Mehlig (Kiel), Y.A. Poupynin (St. Petersburg), H. Tommola (Tampere), M.D. Voeikova (Vienna), V.S. Xrakovsky (St. Petersburg), N. Zorikhina-Nilsson (Goeteborg).
ISBN 9783895863905. LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 23. 260pp.
