TAM terminology quicky

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Daistallia
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TAM terminology quicky

Post by Daistallia »

Working on my tense/aspect/mood, I have a querry on what term I might use:

a single act taken as a completed whole ("I saw a movie.") = perfective

a momentary or punctiliar act taken as a completed whole ("I sneezed.") = semelfactive

a single act taken as a completed whole in repetitive series of acts which may or may not be taken as a completed whole ("I watched Star Wars." with the implication that I am/was watching or have watched the whole series, but emphasis on the act of having watched the one movie) = what?

(Note, yes, I know those are all past tense indicative mood. I'm looking for an aspect. ;))

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Re: TAM terminology quicky

Post by spats »

Daistallia wrote:Working on my tense/aspect/mood, I have a querry on what term I might use:

a single act taken as a completed whole ("I saw a movie.") = perfective

a momentary or punctiliar act taken as a completed whole ("I sneezed.") = semelfactive

a single act taken as a completed whole in repetitive series of acts which may or may not be taken as a completed whole ("I watched Star Wars." with the implication that I am/was watching or have watched the whole series, but emphasis on the act of having watched the one movie) = what?

(Note, yes, I know those are all past tense indicative mood. I'm looking for an aspect. ;))
This is tricky. These are all perfective aspect; they're just different types of aktionsart... maybe. The difference between the first and second is telicity; the first is telic and the second is atelic. The third I think depends on context. If I say, "I saw 'A New Hope'", the implication could be many things: ... and it was pretty good; ... and I'm in the middle of 'The Empire Strikes Back'; ... and now I've seen it (normally this sense would use "I have seen" in English). I'm not sure there is a difference of aspect per se unless you're using the experiential sense, in which case you can call it experiential, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

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Daistallia
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Re: TAM terminology quicky

Post by Daistallia »

Ok, to clarify/elaborate, the lang I'm working on uses a system of temporal markers that divide prefective aspect in those three manners, and I'm wondering what the technical term (if any) for the third one might be.

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