| Full text | |
| Author(s): |
Ferreira, Marcelo
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Journal article |
| Source: | NATURAL LANGUAGE SEMANTICS; v. 24, n. 4, p. 353-397, DEC 2016. |
| Web of Science Citations: | 5 |
| Abstract | |
This paper develops a unified analysis for the meaning of imperfective aspect that covers progressives, habituals, and counterfactuals, aiming at an understanding of two crosslinguistically frequent syncretisms: one between progressives and habituals, and one between habituals and counterfactuals. I first discuss progressive and habitual readings in detail, identifying mereological, temporal, and modal ingredients in both interpretations. My claim is that the temporal and modal ingredients are the same, and I propose to differentiate these readings in terms of verbal plurality: progressives are about singular events, and habituals are about plural events. I then extend the analysis to stative predicates, which I analyze as uncountable mass-like verbal predicates, noticing that imperfective statives tend to be formally similar to imperfective habituals. This paves the way to an analysis of the role of habitual morphology in counterfactuals. I argue that the imperfective operator is attached to a modal/stative predicate in these constructions, and that counterfactuals are about world states holding at the utterance time. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 13/21993-8 - Reference and quantification in the verb tenses of Portuguese |
| Grantee: | Marcelo Barra Ferreira |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships abroad - Research |