Experimental study on perception, event segmentation and lexical and grammatical aspect in oral narrative
Authors
Sonia Suárez Cepeda
Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Coronel Gil 353, 2° piso, (6300), Santa Rosa, La Pampa
In this paper we analyze, from a pragmatic-semantic perspective, the interaction between the speakers’ selection of lexical aspect (Aktionsart) and grammatical aspect to express their temporal representation of the events observed in a sequence of videos. Our study draws on the assumptions that speakers’ choices are the result of a “thinking for speaking” process (Slobin 1997, 2003:167), and that their organization of perceptions follows a hierarchical order, as proposed by Zack in his Theory of Event Segmentation (Zacks 2001, 2007; Tversky et al 2008). We also follow París’ pragmatic-semantic approach (París 2007) and assume that the lexical aspect or Aktionsart is determined by the intrinsic semantic properties of each verb prior to any compositional analysis, and that it is part of the Lexical Semantic Representation (LSR) of the verb (Verkuyl 1993, Krifka 1998, París 2007). In contrast, grammatical aspect expresses time in terms of (im)perfect intervals. Both aspectual systems interact, yielding a complex system of temporal notions encoded in the Spanish language. Our hypotheses were that the speakers’ decisions on the use of (im)perfect, progressive or preterite morphosyntactic markings to express temporal notions depend on two main features: the dynamics of the event itself, and the speakers’ perception of the event as a bounded or unbounded episode. The results showed that perception and verbalization are distinct instances in which the epistemic distance is determined by: 1) the experiencer, 2) the immediacy of the experience itself and 3) the properties of the perceived object. Aspectual markings present variations according to the epistemic distance the speakers’ choose to express.
Suárez Cepeda, S. (2011). Experimental study on perception, event segmentation and lexical and grammatical aspect in oral narrative. Lenguas Modernas, (38), Pág. 121–142. Retrieved from https://revistaestudiostributarios.uchile.cl/index.php/LM/article/view/30727
