Linguistics 7430: Tense and Aspect
 Fall 2007

Time T 10:00-12:30
Place Hellems 291
Instructor Prof. Laura Michaelis
Office Hellems 292
Office hours MWF 10:00-11:15
Voicemail (303) 492-1990
Email firstname.lastnameATcolorado.edu

The Schedule thus far

Click here for the schedule of presentations and to download handouts and readings. Handouts will be in doc format while readings (when downloadable) will generally be in pdf format.

Course Description

Aspectual meaning concerns the presence or absence of change within an interval of interest, commonly known as reference time. Tense concerns the location of the reference time relative to speech time. While tense and aspect are generally treated as separate components of verb meaning, there are indicators that the two systems interact in important ways. For example, in English events and processes cannot ordinarily be reported as ‘ongoing right now’ by means of the simple present tense: *Listen! Your phone rings! In this seminar, we will explore the following questions:
  • What kinds of interactions do tense and aspect display?
  • Are there aspectually sensitive constructions, including tenses?
  • Are some languages more 'aspectual' than others?
  • What role does aspect play in the representation of verb meaning?
  • What is the difference between verbal aspect (i.e., Aktionsart) and grammatical aspect?
  • Does English have aspect in the same way that, e.g., Romance languages do?
  • Are aspectual distinctions just philosophical or do they play a role in grammar?
  • Does the event type of a verb tell us anything about that verb's syntactic behavior?
  • How does one construct semantic argumentation?
In the first half of the course we will look closely at event-based categorization. In the second half we will focus on the relationship between aspectual representation and verb morphosyntax. Participants will present readings (sometimes of my choosing and sometimes of their own choosing). Participants will learn ways to construct papers and arguments through careful analysis of readings.

Readings

Click here for a list of foundational readings; we will read some of these together in the course of the semester, but this list will provide guidance for you if you want to read independently. Our first readings will be taken from a classic introduction to the subject, Aspect by Bernard Comrie (Cambridge University Press; 1976). This slim little volume can be purchased new or used from Amazon and other sites. You should aim to have a copy in hand by the end of the first week of class. Thereafter, readings from books and articles will be assigned on an ad hoc basis, depending on where our interests lead us and what topics class members choose to present (see Requirements below). These readings will either be made available as pdfs on the site (under Downloads) or as photocopies in the rolling file next to the photocopier.

Communication

You must subscribe to the class listserv, which will enable you to receive updates from the instructor and post questions/comments to the instructor and other class members. Subscribe yourself by sending an email to listproc@lists.colorado.edu containing the following command: subscribe ling7430_07 <yourfirstname your last name>

Requirements

Each participant will be required to lead discussion of at least two readings and also present a field report on the tense-aspect system of language selected by the participant. A final term paper is also required. The term paper can be a critical survey of some work in the field, an analysis of a narrative text (download a sample annotation of a Latin text passage), or a theoretically informed data analysis (potentially based on the field report). In either case, participants will be required to submit a term paper proposal to me by Friday, November 16th, and respond to any feedback the instructor offers about the proposal prior to starting the final paper. The final paper should be 10-15 pages long. It should use a standard format for citing references (see any copy of the journal Language for a good standard style). The term paper will be due in hard copy on Monday, December 17 at noon in my office. Here is a set of term paper guidelines and tools for aspectual analysis. For your field report and/or term paper, you might wish to use the Östen Dahl Tense-Aspect-Modality questionnaire, downloadable as a doc file here, thanks to Aous Mansouri. If you do write a paper based on the questionnaire, be sure to site the appropriate reference for it: Dahl, Östen. 2000. Tense and Aspect in the Language of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Here is a list of issues to consider in your field report.