The Term Aktionsart

KimmoHuovila
Posts: 50
Joined: June 2nd, 2011, 8:57 am

Re: The Term Aktionsart

Post by KimmoHuovila »

Alan Patterson wrote:The label 'layers' is used to denote SEPARATE and DISTINCT strata of something. They remain layers and do not intermingle, otherwise they cease being layers. Would it make sense to recommend a term that allows for the resultant "mixing" of the "layers" to form a unit of thought. Perhaps something close to the concept of "chemicals" in that H + 2O (letter 'O') makes H2O where the individual components mix to form a new, chemical element. By keeping these "layers" as layers, do we not lose the concept of the resultant mixture/new chemical that emerges.
I am not sure that these layers intermingle as layers with respect to aspect even if the semantics of the inner layer contributes to the semantics of the whole. Here is a more formal definition.
Kimmo Huovila (Towards a Theory of Aspectual Nesting for New Testament Greek, p. 10) wrote: By nesting I mean that a linguistic construction is embedded in another so that, with respect to a semantic feature, the outer construction changes the meaning of the composite expression from the meaning of the inner construction. The value of the feature in the inner construction still contributes to the semantics of the whole expression. This may be illustrated with the following figure.
[[XFa] YFb]
F stands for a semantic feature. Fa is the feature F with value a. Fb is the feature F with value b. X has the semantic feature Fa. Y[X] (the composite expression) has the semantic feature Fb. It is irrelevant whether Y precedes, follows, or circumscribes X. It may even be zero (see section 2.3.1.2). This is semantic nesting.
Different layers of semantic nesting may have slots in the structure of the language where they can be coded. I have already presented two such slots for aspect: the lexical and the grammatical layer. These two layers are structurally nested.
Kimmo Huovila
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