Dear Ruth, Because you are a member of SIL, I address these comments to you. I looked at the SIL definition of aspect, and I am very surprised, to say the least. The definitions are misleading because 1) they imply that aspect is one thing in all languages, which definitely is not the case, and 2) aktionsart and aspect are sometimes mixed (as Comriee does), but they must be strictly differentiated, as George has said.
I add a few other definitions of aspect, from a table with the heading "Confusion of aspect terminology" in "The Development of English Aspectual Systems," L:J: Brinton, 1988, p. 4: "perfective punctual, aorist, resultative, momentaneous, imperfective, progressive, imperfect, linear, continuative, durative, cursive, inchoative, ingressive, inceptive, continuative, progressiv, egressive, resukltative, terminative, iterative, effective, finitive, frequentative." If anynone starts the study of Hebrew verbs on the basis of the SIL definitions or the other definitions or terms, he or she will be completely lost. Best regards, Rolf Furuli Stavern Norway _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
