Aspect and Reference Time

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Aspect and Reference Time is written by Olga Borik and published by OUP Oxford. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0191516244 (ISBN 10) and 9780191516245 (ISBN 13).

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.