[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Book query (Binnick & Comrie)




   Date: Fri, 04 Nov 1994 18:24:48 -0600 (CST)
   From: rod.j.decker@uwrf.edu

   I just read James Voelz's article on verbal aspect in Neotestamentica and 
   he cited a book I'd not heard of before: Robert I. Binnick, _Time and the 
   Verb: A Guide to Tense and Aspect_ (Oxford, 1991). Is anyone familiar 
   with this, and if so, could you pass on your observations as to content 
   and value?

I haven't read this myself, but I believe it's supposed to be good.

   Second, I've read many references to Comrie's _Aspect_, but it is 
   apparently out of print. To complicate matters, only one seminary or 
   univ. library in the Minneapolis metro area has a copy catalogued--but 
   it's missing. Since this is directly related to my probable dissertation 
   topic, I'd very much like to buy a used copy. Anyone know where I could 
   find it? Or do you have a copy gathering dust you'd be willing to sell?

You might try calling Cambridge University Press to see if they have a
copy in stock.  I'd be truly amazed if it were out of print other than
momentarily, since it's one of that CUP ``red'' series of basic
introductions to various linguistic subjects.  Note that Comrie's
book is a well-regarded introduction to this area, but there are other
primary sources as well as lots of current work.  (I assume you're
going to look at the Vendler/Dowty work on aspectual categories and
the subsequent work based on them.)

You might also check to see if any of the Eurotra publications are
available in your area.  (Eurotra was a machine-translation project,
funded by the European community.)  One of the overview volumes (the
first of the series, I believe) contains a discussion of tense and
aspect in the context of a multi-lingual machine-translation series.
Aside from its application to MT, it struck me as being a very nice
overview of how to form a basic vocabulary of tense and aspect
primitives that could be used to model the tense/aspect systems of
several, sometimes typologically different, languages (those of the
EC).

-30-
Bob Ingria



References: