Documentation

Linglib.Phenomena.TenseAspect.Studies.Smith1997

The Parameter of Aspect (2nd ed.) #

@cite{smith-1997}

Formalizes Smith's two-component theory of aspect: aspectual meaning = situation type × viewpoint aspect, independently combined.

What this file exercises #

What lives elsewhere #

Smith Ch. 2: each situation type has a characteristic temporal schema defining its internal temporal structure.

- States: (I)——(F)          unbounded, no internal stages
- Activities: I......F_Arb  arbitrary final point, internal stages
- Accomplishments: I.....F_Nat R  natural final point + result
- Semelfactives: E          single instantaneous stage
- Achievements: ...E_R...   instantaneous + result state

We encode the structural properties of each schema. 

Whether the situation type has a natural (non-arbitrary) final point. Telic types have natural endpoints; atelic types don't. This is exactly the telicity feature, named for Smith's terminology.

Note: hasNaturalEndpoint coincides extensionally with hasResultState in our 3-feature system (both reduce to telicity), but the concepts differ in Smith's presentation: a natural endpoint is a property of the temporal schema's boundary structure, while a result state is the post-final-point stage (the built house, the won race). We retain hasNaturalEndpoint as the primary predicate and derive result-state presence from it via resultState_iff_naturalEndpoint.

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    Whether the situation type has internal stages (intervals of change). Dynamic + durative types have internal stages; states and punctuals don't. Smith Ch. 4: the progressive focuses internal stages, so types without them resist the progressive.

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      Whether the situation type has detachable preliminary stages that the imperfective can focus independently of the event itself.

      Smith §4.2.2 (p. 75): achievements have preliminary stages — processes leading to the instantaneous change ("The team was reaching the top" presents preliminary stages, not the reaching itself). Semelfactives, also instantaneous, do NOT have preliminary stages and never appear with imperfectives focusing a preliminary interval.

      Accomplishments also have process stages, but these are non-detachable: the process IS the event (building a house). The imperfective focuses internal stages of the event proper, not separate preliminary stages. This detachability distinction is why hasPreliminaryStages is true only for achievements.

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        Activities have internal stages but no natural endpoint.

        Semelfactives: single stage, no internal structure, no endpoint, no preliminary stages. Contrasts with achievements on all three schema properties despite sharing [−durative].

        Achievements: instantaneous with natural endpoint, and detachable preliminary stages that the imperfective can focus.

        States: no internal stages, no natural endpoint.

        Result states coincide with natural endpoints in the 3-feature system. Both reduce to telicity. Conceptually distinct in Smith's presentation (endpoint = schema boundary, result = post-final stage), but our feature decomposition doesn't distinguish them — both are consequences of [+telic].

        Smith §4.1: viewpoints differ in what they make visible.

        | Viewpoint     | Initial pt | Internal stages | Final pt |
        |---------------|------------|----------------|----------|
        | Perfective    | visible    | visible        | visible  |
        | Imperfective  | not vis.   | visible        | not vis. |
        | Neutral       | visible    | ≥1 stage       | open     |
        
        The neutral viewpoint is informationally between perfective
        and imperfective: it always includes I (like perfective) but
        F may or may not be visible (unlike either). 
        
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        Whether the viewpoint can focus preliminary stages of an event. @cite{smith-1997} §4.2.2 (p. 75): imperfective viewpoints may focus preliminary stages of achievements ("The team was reaching the top"). §4.2.3 (p. 80): neutral viewpoints do NOT focus preliminary stages — this is a key discriminator between neutral and imperfective.

        French Futur achievements cannot conjoin with assertions that the event didn't occur (p. 80, ex. 41): # "La guerre éclaira mais elle n'éclaira pas." Unlike imperfectives, which can present preliminary stages without entailing the event occurs.

        Perfective viewpoints don't focus preliminary stages either — they present the event as a whole (or closed).

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          Neutral viewpoints do not focus preliminary stages, unlike imperfectives. This is the key discrimination: "La guerre éclaira" (neutral/Futur) does NOT have the preliminary reading available to "La guerre était en train d'éclater" (imperfective).

          The neutral viewpoint is strictly between perfective and imperfective in informativity: it shows I (like perfective, unlike imperfective) but doesn't assert F (like imperfective, unlike perfective).

          Smith §4.3: the two components of aspectual meaning are independent. Any situation type can combine with any viewpoint. The 5 × 4 product is freely generated — there are no gaps.

          This is the core structural claim of the two-component theory. We
          verify it by showing that `ViewpointType` and `VendlerClass` are
          independently enumerable and that each combination is distinct. 
          

          An aspectual interpretation: the combination of situation type and viewpoint. This is the "two-component" structure.

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                All 20 combinations of situation type × viewpoint.

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                      The product is freely generated: 25 distinct combinations.

                      No duplicates in the product — all combinations are distinct.

                      Smith §4.2: languages differ in their viewpoint inventories. Three parameters: 1. Which viewpoints are available 2. Which is the default (dominant) viewpoint 3. Whether/how statives participate in the perfective system

                      These parameters are the "parameter of aspect" — the locus of
                      cross-linguistic variation within the universal two-component theory. 
                      

                      How the perfective viewpoint interacts with statives. @cite{smith-1997} pp. 69-70 identifies three cross-linguistic patterns:

                      • closed: perfective covers statives with a closed interpretation (French: "Marie a vécu à Paris" — asserts the situation is over)
                      • open: perfective appears with stative verb constellations but allows both open and closed readings (English: "Jennifer knew Turkish" — she may or may not still know it)
                      • excluded: perfective does not apply to statives at all (Russian, Chinese, Navajo — no perfective stative sentences)
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                          A language's aspectual system parameters.

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                              English: perfective + imperfective (progressive); no neutral; perfective with statives allows open or closed readings (@cite{smith-1997} p. 70: "Jennifer knew Turkish" — she may still know it or may have forgotten).

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                                French: perfective + imperfective + neutral (Futur); perfective covers statives with closed reading (@cite{smith-1997} p. 70: "Marie a vécu à Paris" — asserts the situation is over; # "Marie a vécu à Paris et elle y vit encore").

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                                  Mandarin: perfective (-le) + imperfective (zai, -zhe) + neutral (bare); perfective does NOT apply to statives.

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                                    Navajo: perfective + imperfective + neutral (Usitative/Iterative); perfective does NOT apply to statives.

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                                      All four languages have at least perfective and imperfective.

                                      English lacks the neutral viewpoint.

                                      Smith's viewpoint inventories and the WALS typological profiles (Typology.lean) describe the same languages at different levels: Smith identifies which viewpoints a language has; WALS records whether the perfective/imperfective distinction is grammaticalized.

                                      All four Smith languages grammaticalize this distinction (WALS Ch 65
                                      = `.grammatical`), which is consistent with their viewpoint inventories
                                      containing both `.perfective` and `.imperfective`. 
                                      

                                      Languages in Smith's sample all have grammaticalized aspect in WALS. This is expected: Smith's viewpoint inventory presupposes the perfective/imperfective contrast is grammatically expressed.

                                      Smith's French has the neutral viewpoint (Futur); WALS French has inflectional future — consistent, since the Futur is the morphological expression of the neutral viewpoint.

                                      Smith Ch. 4: although the components are independent, their interaction produces predictable interpretive effects.

                                      The imperfective paradox arises exactly when the viewpoint is imperfective and the situation type is telic. "Mary was walking to school" does not entail "Mary walked to school". The paradox doesn't arise for atelic types (activities, states) because their subinterval property makes IMPF entail PRFV.

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                                        The paradox arises for imperfective accomplishments.

                                        The paradox does not arise for imperfective activities.

                                        The paradox never arises with perfective viewpoint.

                                        Whether the perfective conveys completion (reaching the natural endpoint) or merely termination (stopping). @cite{smith-1997} pp. 67-68: "The Activity sentence conveys termination (Lily stopped swimming) whereas the Accomplishment conveys completion (Mrs Ramsey finished the letter)."

                                        • Perfective + telic → completion (the endpoint was reached)
                                        • Perfective + atelic → termination (the event stopped)
                                        • Non-perfective viewpoints don't assert either
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                                            Determine the perfective effect from an aspectual interpretation.

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                                              Perfective accomplishments convey completion. "Mrs Ramsey wrote a letter" → she finished it (# "she didn't finish it").

                                              Perfective activities convey termination, not completion. "Lily swam in the pond" → she stopped swimming (not completed swimming).

                                              Perfective achievements convey completion (instantaneous endpoint).

                                              Imperfective viewpoints don't assert completion or termination.

                                              Completion vs termination tracks telicity exactly: telic situations complete, atelic situations merely terminate.

                                              Progressive requires internal stages (durative + dynamic). This is derived from the feature decomposition, not stipulated per class — connecting to progressive_from_features in Diagnostics.lean.

                                              Connect Smith's compositional rules (§3.3) to Composition.lean and verify against Smith's examples.

                                              Smith's external override (§3.2.5) is idempotent and absorbs prior composition — the override is the final word.

                                              The count/mass distinction in NPs tracks cumulativity/quantization: count NPs are quantized (QUA), mass NPs are cumulative (CUM). This connects Smith's compositional rules to Krifka's mereological telicity theory via the bridge in Events/CEM.lean.

                                              • V[+Telic] + NP[+Count/QUA] → VCon[+Telic] (telic preserved)
                                              • V[+Telic] + NP[-Count/CUM] → VCon[-Telic] (atelicized)

                                              These are the same predictions as eat_two_apples_telic and eat_apples_atelic in Krifka1998.lean.

                                              Smith's hasNaturalEndpoint is extensionally equivalent to K89's QUA-via-MereoTag. Both formalisms derive telicity from incomparable primitives — Smith from Vendler-class feature decomposition (telicity ∈ {telic, atelic}), K89 from algebraic mereology (MereoTag.qua/.cum) — but agree on the four-way Vendler partition. This one-line bridge makes the cross-framework agreement visible at the type level (round-2 cross-framework audit found that Phenomena/TenseAspect/Studies/Krifka1989.lean was running on a parallel track without an explicit Smith ↔ K89 connection).