This contribution is concerned with the interplay between the lexical meaning of predicates (actionality) and the semantics of aspectual morphology. It tries to explain why the Imperfect in Italian (and by extension its counterparts in other Romance languages) is aspectually ambiguous, in that it can be assigned, for instance, both a progressive and a habitual reading. The general hypothesis is that progressivity and habituality represent different manifestations of the imperfective aspect, whose main difference with respect to the perfective aspect consists in the fact that its semantics involves the introduction of 'strong' quantifiers over times and events

A case study in the interaction of aspect and actionality: the imperfect in Italian

DELFITTO, Denis;
1995-01-01

Abstract

This contribution is concerned with the interplay between the lexical meaning of predicates (actionality) and the semantics of aspectual morphology. It tries to explain why the Imperfect in Italian (and by extension its counterparts in other Romance languages) is aspectually ambiguous, in that it can be assigned, for instance, both a progressive and a habitual reading. The general hypothesis is that progressivity and habituality represent different manifestations of the imperfective aspect, whose main difference with respect to the perfective aspect consists in the fact that its semantics involves the introduction of 'strong' quantifiers over times and events
1995
9788870116373
aspect; actionality; imperfect
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/26030
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