The Interdependence between Markers of Boundedness in Verbs and in Nouns

Abstract

The analysis of the data in the preceding chapters showed that English features systemic devices to mark the perfective/imperfective contrast, which in languages like the Slavic ones is located in verbs and is represented morphologically, though not in a straightforward manner typical of the realisation of some other grammatical categories. These devices can be described within the structure of the sentence, most revealingly within the SVO semantico-syntactic pattern. Only implicit in Verkuyl’s (1972) theory (and absent in his 1993 extended theory) is the requirement that for a certain sentence to be regarded as perfective its subject and its object should be exponents of temporal boundedness — besides the necessity for the verb to possess the lexical aspectual potential of ‘telicity’. Generally speaking, again according to Verkuyl’s theory, for imperfectivity to be explicated in the SVO type of sentence, either the subject or the object (or both) should be associated with non-boundedness or the verb as a lexical entry should lack the ‘telicity’ feature.