Aspect and Reference Time (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics): 13 - Softcover

This book investigates the temporal structure of language. It deals with central issues in the understanding of tense and aspect, proposes a new approach to the main problems in the area, and seeks to establish the universal semantic properties of two important and contentious aspectual categories, perfectivity and imperfectivity.

Dr Borik develops an original theory of aspect. She shows how this accounts for aspectual categories in Russian, and that it can used to compare Russian to other languages where similar aspectual issues arise. She devotes particular attention to English, a language which appears to have no grammatical categories of perfectivity and imperfectivity. She argues that the semantic properties established for the Russian tense-aspect system are reflected in English, and reveals parallels in the expression of temporal and aspectual information in the two languages.

Aspect and Reference Time will interest all scholars of the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of aspect and tense. The author's clear exposition and cross-linguistic approach make it a useful basis for courses at graduate level.

Olga Borik is Lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication at the New University of Russia. After her BA in linguistics at the Moscow State University in 1995 she obtained an MPhil from the University of Tronsø in 1998 and a PhD from the University of Utrecht in 2002.