TY - JOUR

T1 - The neutral aspect in Eastern Dan

AU - Vydrin, Valentin

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - The paper deals with a default aspectual construction in Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). This construction may express different aspectual meanings, depending on the lexical semantics of a verb, on the presence or absence of a direct object or an adverbial, and on the pragmatic status of the argument: habitual, stative, counter-factual, progressive, imperfect, resultative or perfect, and completive meanings are all attested. At the same time, Eastern Dan has specialized verbal constructions for most of these aspectual meanings. In the paper, conditions for the realization of different aspectual meanings are discussed. A hypothesis on the origin of this construction is suggested.

AB - The paper deals with a default aspectual construction in Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). This construction may express different aspectual meanings, depending on the lexical semantics of a verb, on the presence or absence of a direct object or an adverbial, and on the pragmatic status of the argument: habitual, stative, counter-factual, progressive, imperfect, resultative or perfect, and completive meanings are all attested. At the same time, Eastern Dan has specialized verbal constructions for most of these aspectual meanings. In the paper, conditions for the realization of different aspectual meanings are discussed. A hypothesis on the origin of this construction is suggested.

KW - verbal aspect

KW - Aktionsart

KW - habitual

KW - perfect

KW - imperfect

KW - Dan

KW - Mande

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/0034bdc3-4992-32a9-9b81-9355710bca42/

U2 - 10.37892/2686-8946-2020-1-1-83-108

DO - 10.37892/2686-8946-2020-1-1-83-108

M3 - Article

VL - 1

SP - 93

EP - 108

JO - Language in Africa

JF - Language in Africa

SN - 2686-8946

IS - 1

ER -