Durative (grammar)
Durative (from Latin durare “to last” ) - also called aterminative , continuative or italic - is a type of action of verbs , i.e. a meaning property that affects the types of temporal development of a situation or their division into phases. In the typical case, a durative verb denotes processes that are not divided into different phases, ie "processes that are continuous or not further structured in terms of their passage of time ( burn, work, eat). "
The term durative type of action occurs mainly in older and philologically oriented literature, but hardly in the more recent literature on types of action in the context of formal semantics , accordingly definitions in modern terms are fluctuating and subject to uncertainties. In some sources, durative appears as a counter-term to terminative , i.e. as a counter- term to verbs that define a contextual limitation of a situation in terms of their meaning (e.g. empty your plate ; durative, on the other hand, would be the pure, indefinite activity of eating) . In other linguistic sources, durative appears as an opposite term too punctual , so it describes situations that extend over time. In linguistic literature, it often remains unclear whether state predicates (i.e. situations without any internal dynamics or change) should also count as durative.
In some German grammars, the durative type of action is also referred to as imperfect ; however, as a rule, imperfect is a term for a grammatical aspect , which is to be distinguished from action type.
Durative verbs and durative adverbials
Apart from verbs, the term durative also applies to the division of time adverbials : expressions such as (a time) lang are referred to as durative adverbials , which can accordingly be used as a test for durative verbs:
- work - work for one hour / two hours
- The verb work is durative, the duration of the situation can be freely determined.
- eat up - ?? eat the bread for an hour
- The verb aufessen is not a durative, but terminative, and incompatible with the adverbial (for a while) . The limitation of the situation cannot be determined by a specification of the duration (but results from when the bread is over).
Further examples of durative verbs in German are: burn, eat (intransitive), sleep, see, run.
Durativity and the limitation of a situation
Durative verbs are defined as the opposite of terminative verbs : While the latter denote situations whose end point is predetermined by the verb meaning (i.e. have a "culmination phase"), durative verbs denote situations which, according to their description, could continue indefinitely (regardless of when they actually occurred end up). The term durative is therefore sometimes understood to be synonymous with atelic ; in the Duden grammar (2009) this equation is made explicitly.
In Slavonic studies , so-called “delimitative” verbs are also classified as durative (although they are aspectually perfective), e.g. B. as in the Russian example:
Ja postojal tam čas Ich (po-)stand dort eine-Stunde
The verb stojal “(I) stood” appears here with the prefix po- “for a certain time / a little”. It is therefore a temporary situation. However, the po- is not limited by a content criterion (as in the above example “eat up”), but only by an (indefinite) time. In this respect, there is still a difference to terminative verb meanings. In view of this example, Comrie (1976) suggests limiting the term durative in such a way that it is intended to denote a situation of a certain duration, i.e. independent of imperfectivity and in contrast above all to punctual events.
Durative and the distinction between activity and state
The wording of many definitions requires that durative verbs denote "processes" (or activities); However, state predicates are also found in such sources under the examples given. In other works, states are explicitly included under the durative predicates. In this respect it seems unclear how the term durative relates to the distinction between state and process.
The difference between the two classes is that states are situations without internal dynamics and without a sequence of stages, i.e. completely homogeneous over time. They can therefore be related to points in time:
- When I looked in the basement at 12 o'clock, the light was on.
Typical activities, on the other hand, require a minimal extension of time, and can therefore not be predicted as a whole from a point in time; for a point in time they can only be described as "in progress"; this difference is not visibly marked in German, but in many other languages such as B. English :
- When I looked into the room, John was reading a book (NOT: read a book ).
States (e.g. “the light is on”), unlike activities like “reading”, do not necessarily have to extend over time. If states are included in the class of durative predicates, then durativity would not necessarily imply temporal expansion (even if this were still the typical case).
The characteristic extended situation appears more precisely in the literature as a characteristic “[+ stages]”. In the so-called Vendler classification in four main types of action, it follows that the situations "with stages" include the classes of activities and accomplishments (but not states and achievements - for details on the Vendler classes see the article Type of action ). If state predicates are also classified as durative, there is a transverse classification: “durative” = states, activities (but not achievements and accomplishments).
States meet the criterion that they can be combined with "durative adverbials", that is, the duration of a period . States are also recorded if durative verbs are simply equated with atelic verbs.
More types of durative predicates
In addition to simple activities (such as working ) or states (such as being sick ), there are also more complicated, derived cases of durative types of action, especially the iterative and habitual interpretation of predicates. Iterative is therefore a type of action that is a sub-type of the durative type of action, for example in the example:
- There was a knock on the door.
- Someone knocked on the door for five minutes.
In the first example it is possible that a single knock can be heard, in this interpretation knocking is then a punctual event and consequently not durative (but "semelfactive"). The second example forces an interpretation as a stringing (iteration) of knocking tones, only on the level of this stringing together the situation is durative, since it is initially indeterminate how long these repetitions will continue. The habitual interpretation behaves in the same way :
- He always used to empty his plate.
The predicate to eat the plate empty is not durative, but terminative (the action is completed as soon as the plate is empty and is not measured according to the length of time). Building on this, however, the auxiliary verb nurture can be used to express that this action was repeated and habitual; at the level of the (indefinite) sequence of repetitions, the entire statement is now durative.
literature
- Hadumod Bußmann (Ed.) With the collaboration of Hartmut Lauffer: Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 4th, revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-520-45204-7 .
- Bernard Comrie : Aspect. Cambridge University Press 1976
- Duden . The grammar. 8th edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim 2009.
- Gerhard Helbig , Joachim Buscha: German grammar. A handbook for the foreigners' course. Langenscheidt, Berlin / Munich / Vienna / Zurich / New York 2001, ISBN 978-3-468-49493-2 .
Web links
- Semantically based adverb subclasses. hypermedia.ids-mannheim.de
- Aspectuality, christianlehmann.eu [1]
Individual evidence
- ^ Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexikon Sprache , 4th edition; JB Metzler , Stuttgart 2010. page 166
- ↑ Hadumod Bußmann (ed.) With the assistance of Hartmut Lauffer: Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 4th, revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-520-45204-7 , p. 151.
- ^ Gerhard Helbig , Joachim Buscha: German grammar. A handbook for the foreigners' course. Langenscheidt, Berlin ( inter alia ) 2001, ISBN 978-3-468-49493-2 , p. 62. Also the online grammar Canoonet
- ↑ See e.g. B. the entry at hypermedia.ids-mannheim, which is linked under "Weblinks"
- ↑ Bußmann (2008), p. 151
- ↑ However, this is not possible in systems in which semi-active people are classified as atelic, e.g. in the system of Carlota Smith: The Parameter of Aspect Kluwer, Dordrecht 1991.
- ↑ p. 1248, "List of technical terms"
- ↑ Comrie (1976), p. 41: “We may therefore make a distinction between imperfectivity and durativity, where imperfectivity means viewing a situation with regard to its internal structure (duration, phasal sequences), and durativity simply refers to the fact that the given situation lasts for a certain period of time (or at least, is conceived of as lasting for a certain period of time); the [Russian] verb postojal ... is thus durative, although not imperfective. The opposite of durativity is punctuality ... "
- ↑ Bußmann (2008), p. 151; Helbig & Buscha (2001) p. 62
- ↑ Helbig and Buscha (2001), p. 64f., “Stand in bloom”; "The institute has existed for 20 years"
- ↑ Athina Sioupi: Aspektdistinktionen compared. Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2014, p. 44, Fig. 8, with reference to Tschirner (1991) and Lyons (1977). There, however, Accomplishments are also referred to as "durative", so that the use of the term here is either incorrect or synonymous with "extended" (cf. the feature "stages" in Rothstein 2004, see below)
- ↑ Hana Filip: Aspect. In: Robert Binnick (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. Oxford University Press 2012, pp. 721-751. See in particular p. 728.
- ↑ z. B. Susan Rothstein: Structuring Events. Blackwell, Oxford 2004. Chapter 1