Grammaticalization of aktionsart in ancient Slavic : a comparison with aspect in ancient Greek and Latin

Milovanovic, Snezana (1995) Grammaticalization of aktionsart in ancient Slavic : a comparison with aspect in ancient Greek and Latin. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis represents a historical-comparative analysis of two major types of grammatical aspect. The morphological means of expressing aspect in Ancient Greek and Latin, inherited from late PIE, is compared with the grammaticalized Aktionsart, i.e. lexical aspect, of Ancient Slavic. The verb systems of Ancient Greek and Latin are analyzed with reference to the origin and development of verb category functions from late PIE. Grammatical aspectual functions, which are morphologically expressed in Ancient Greek and Latin, are contrasted with Aktionsart or lexical aspectual functions. Interrelations between tense and aspect within the verb system established by the Cognitive-Functional analysis represent a diagnostic criterion in distinguishing grammatical from lexical aspectual functions. -- The verb system of Ancient Slavic undergoes a major change of grammaticalizing Aktionsart. One of the major goals of this thesis is to determine the causal factors for this recategorization of giammatical aspectual function. Grammaticalization of Aktionsart also carries a number of consequences for certain grammatical formations of modem Slavic languages to be examined. -- The choice of these three languages is related to a major theme of this thesis, i.e. to represent two types of grammatical aspectual functions and to explain grammaticalization change from morphological to lexical aspect. Ancient Greek and Latin are chosen as examples of the old Indo-European languages that preserve late PIE morphological means of expressing aspect. Specifically, the verb system of Ancient Greek resembles that of late PIE, while Latin underwent major restructuring of the verb system from a three-way to a two-way aspectual contrast among verb categories. Ancient Slavic is chosen to exemplify and explain grammaticalization of Aktionsart which represents a change from the inherited to a new type of grammatical aspect. The choice of Ancient Slavic is also related to typological similarity of a three-way aspectual contrast with that in Ancient Greek.

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