APSECT - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF VERBAL ASPECT AND RELATED PROBLEMS.

by Bernard Comrie

An introduction to the general linguistic study of aspect. Topics covered include the relation of tense and aspect, the morphology and the semantics of aspect, and structuralist and philosophical approaches. Dr. Comrie draws his examples particularly from English and the Slavonic and Romance languages, but also from Arabic, Chinese, Welsh, Greek and a variety of others. This is the first study of aspect, considered as a general linguistic phenomenon. It is intended for students of individual languages as well as for students of linguistics.

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you characterize time? What is significant when describing how, to what degree of completion, or how many times one does something? And what happens if you do it the way that speakers of language X do? Along with _Basic Color Terms_, this book points out some of the wonder that can be found in linguistics and language.

[Rebecka · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of book you should read in one go, not where you take a 2 month break in the middle. It's a quick read, but I do feel it kind of falls in-between two chairs. It's not a simple introduction to aspect, but it's not an extremely detailed account either. That's pretty obvious: you can't introduce aspect cross-linguistically properly in 140 pages.

Still, it's a very good book. Moreso if you are a Slavicist. Without any knowledge of Slavic languages, which often make out the key examples and present the most interesting aspectual systems, a lot of the information may be somewhat irrelevant and/or difficult to grasp (especially the mace that is Bulgarian), and it could be a better idea to read a book that focuses on your linguistic area of interest. However, for a Slavicist, it's great, because it gives you a lot of good information on *tadaa* Russian, Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic in particular, all the while contrasting them with, notably, Georgian, Ancient and Modern Greek, English and Romance languages.

[sabisteb aka callisto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die ersten 3 Kapitel sind noch interessant, da gibt es viele englische Beispiele und vieles ist für Anglistik noch relevant. Ab Kapitel 4 kann man querlesen, denn wer kein Russisch, Serbokroatisch, Italienisch, Spanisch oder Altgriechisch kann, kann mit den Beispielen halt gar nichts anfangen. Und wer diese Sprachen spricht kann sie möglicherweise nicht lesen, weil Russisch z. Bsp. irgendwie seltsam transkribiert ist.
Ja, ein Klassiker, der Aspekte als Prinzip einführt. Insgesamt aber sehr theoretisch nur auf das Prinzip des Aspekts fixiert und eher nicht für Anglisten.

[Salwa Mostafa]

I want to read this book

[André · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aspect has always been something hard to grasp for me, I never fully understood the concept of it and the distinction between the various types of aspect. I hoped to be able to understand it after reading a standard work on it. Unfortunately I still don't quite get it. This might not be this book's fault, though... As expected it was very thorough and detailed and illuminated every aspect of, well, aspect. However, real glosses were missing. I'm not sure why I didn't like it too much; can't really name any flaws, but since I don't feel much wiser now, I can't say that it helped me very much.

[Sky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book that is a good introduction to the topic of Aspect in linguistics. It is filled with examples to guide the intuition as some of the definitions can be a bit wordy and difficult to follow. Very good read.

[Marcus Lira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction to verbal aspect in general. I wish the examples were better glossed, though.