Toward a grammar of aspect: The case of the English perfect construction

This study addresses two interrelated questions: what is the nature of aspectual meaning, and what are the grammatical realizations of aspectual meaning in English? These questions are addressed in part through an examination of the English perfect construction (e.g., The Eagle has landed). In chapter one, I outline a tripartite model of the English aspectual system, consisting of grammatical aspect, situation aspect and phasal aspect. The perfect is depicted as an exponent of phasal aspect. Phasal aspect, according to Coseriu (1976), indicates a relationship between a reference time and "the degree of development of the verbal process under consideration". Exponents of phasal aspect encode a situation type distinct from the Aktionsart of the VP-complement denotatum. I demonstrate that the perfect construction denotes a stative situation: a state of 'aftermath' following the event expressed by the VP complement. Chapter one establishes a formal semantic model for representing phasal aspect.;Chapter two uses the Construction Grammar framework to describe the morphosyntactic constructions which encode phasal aspect in English. These constructions are seen as complexes of highly specific semantic, discourse-pragmatic and grammatical properties. The repertoire of aspectual constructions is a structured inventory of form-meaning pairings, in which formal and semantic correspondences between constructions are represented by inheritance links. The various perfect constructions, and their semantic interrelations, are examined in chapters three and four.;The grammar is seen as a system of functional oppositions. Accordingly, certain construction-particular constraints on use and interpretation are seen as ecologically based constraints. I argue that while many of these constraints are calculable via Gricean principles, some are instead attributable to a discourse-pragmatic division of labor among two or more synonymous constructions. One such constraint prevents the resultative present-perfect from expressing a pragmatically presupposed event proposition. In chapter five, I argue that this constraint arises from a functional contrast between the resultative present-perfect and preterite. Chapter five further shows that the existential and resultative readings of the present perfect have distinct grammatical and discourse-pragmatic reflexes. The present perfect is regarded as a polysemous construction: a single morphosyntactic form having several related meanings.