Why was aspectual composition out of reach in Indo-European studies on aspect in the decades around 1900?
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Henk J. Verkuyl [1]
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[1] Utrecht University
Utrecht University
Países Bajos
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- Localización: Indogermanische Forschungen, ISSN 0019-7262, Vol. 128, Nº. 1, 2023, págs. 253-304
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
This article presents a science-historical analysis of aspectual theorizing in the period from roughly 1800 till around 1950. The leading question is why aspectual composition, which is now an accepted theoretical notion, remained out of reach. Three measuring points are placed in the more general historicalcomparative linguistic theory developed during that period showing changes in the theoretical perspective on the analysis of aspect (and tense) with respect to notions such as continuity, completion, totality, subjective and objective Aktionsart, etc. This prepares for an answer to the question in the title of the paper. Central to finding the answer given here is the relation between linguistics and logic which in the selected period went from close to nil to close, with two totally different forms of logic and two rather different forms of doing linguistics.
