2006. B. Aarts and A. McMahon, (eds.), The Handbook of English Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Aspect and Aspectuality Robert I. Binnick 1. Introduction The term aspect is used to refer to situation aspect (section 2), viewpoint aspect (section 3), and phasic aspect (section 4). Some scholars (e.g., Verkuyl, 1996) call aspectual phenomena in general aspectuality, as opposed to aspects, the specific aspectual categories. Some, like Dik (1997), use aspectuality as a cover term for situation and viewpoint aspect. 2. Situation aspect 2.1. Definition Situation aspect (Smith, 1983, 1986, 1991), also known as lexical aspect or Aktionsart ‘kind of action’, concerns the classification of eventualities (Bach, 1981, 1986) or situations (Mourelatos, 1978), that is, states of affairs or occurrences, in terms of their temporal properties, and, secondarily, a classification of the expressions referring to them in particular languages. The best known classificatory scheme is that of Vendler (1957), who categorizes verbs as states (e.g., exist), activities (run), accomplishments (climb), and achievements (arrive), though it has widely been reinterpreted (as by Pianesi and Varzi, 1996, p. 95) as a classification of a broader range of expressions (and of the situations they denote). The three basic types of eventualities (Mourelatos, 1978) are the state, such as being ill; the event, such as falling ill, and the process or activity (Vendler, 1957), for example ageing. An eventuality consisting of a sequence of recurring eventualities of a uniform type, as in (1) below, has been called a series (Freed, 1979). (1) The puppy whimpered all night. States are properties of times, whereas events occur at times (Davidson 1967; Parsons 1990). Processes, like events, are occurrences. But, unlike events, they are not individual, countable things (Bach, 1981; Krifka, 1989). Loves is a stative expression because loving is a state, while eats is non-stative because eating is not a state. Expressions which belong to the various aspectual classes differ in their semantic and grammatical properties. For example, a stative main verb in the present tense (2) is interpreted as reporting a state holding at the present time, but a non-stative main verb (3) is not interpreted as reporting an event occurring at the present time. (2) John loves pizza. (3) John eats pizza. A stative expression may have an inchoative interpretation, in which it represents an event, the transition into the state (4), and a non-stative expression similarly may have an ingressive interpretation, as the initiation of the process or event (5).2 2 (4) Susan finally understood what she had to do. (5) When she saw John, Susan left the building. Verkuyl (1972) shows that the relevant linguistic level for aspectual classification is that of the clause or proposition, since aspectual properties are compositional and aspectual classification is affected by the various elements accompanying the verb, including the subject (Dowty, 1979; Platzack, 1979; Carlson, 1981). Thus swam is processual (denoting a process), and swam across the pool eventual (denoting an event), but whereas (6) refers to an event, (7) refers to a series. (6) One of the applicants swam across the pool. (7) Each of the applicants swam across the pool. 2.2. Types of eventualities and expressions The various types of eventualities are distinguished by the temporal properties of stativity, telicity, and durativity. They also differ in regard to cumulativity and partitivity. States are stative: they are uniform and lack both internal structure and development. Events may consist of different parts or phases (section 2.3) and show development over time. States, like typical processes, are durative: they hold of intervals or periods of time. An achievement, such as spotting a coin on the pavement, is a non-durative event, taking place at a point in time, while an accomplishment, such as climbing a mountain, is durative, taking place over an interval of time (Vendler, 1957). A point (Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976) or semelfactive (Smith, 1991) process such as blinking once is non-durative, while ageing is a durative process. Events are telic (Garey, 1957): an event is a transition from an initial state to a result or consequent state, hence it contains an inherent end-point or terminal bound, the point of culmination (Moens and Steedman 1987, 1988), beyond which the event cannot be said to continue. States and processes are atelic, though they can be assigned terminal bounds, as in (8). (8) The puppy {was lonely/dozed} until his owners returned. Some scholars use the term bounded as a synonym of telic, while others distinguish boundedness, having a final bound (8), from telicity, having an inherent, terminal bound. Some use bounded to mean having both initial and final bounds. Because of their different temporal properties, the types of eventualities naturally differ as to the types of adverbials they co-occur with (Dowty, 1979). Thus a frame adverbial, such as in a minute, normally combines with an eventive expression, and triggers an ingressive or inchoative interpretation of a non-event (9). On the other hand, an adverbial of duration such as for a minute, normally combines with an atelic expression, and triggers a processual interpretation of an eventive expression (10). (9) Susan saw the flaw in a minute. (10) Susan ate the apple for a minute. States and processes are cumulative (Krifka, 1989); that is, two consecutive eventualities constitute an eventuality of the same type, so that (11) and (12) jointly entail (13). States and processes are also partitive (Carlson, 1981): portions of an3 3 eventuality are themselves eventualities of the same type, so (13) entails both (11) and (12). Accordingly, expressions for states and processes have the subinterval property: if the state s expressed by an expression e holds over an interval of time I, s holds over any subinterval I´ within I (Bennett & Partee, 1978), Events are neither cumulative nor partitive, and accordingly expressions for events lack the subinterval property. Thus (14) entails (15), but (16)