Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Situation aspect as a universal aspect
T2 - implications for artificial languages
AU - Xiao, R. Z.
AU - McEnery, A. M.
N1 - No PDF offprint is available. The version available here is the final manuscript.
PY - 2002/9
Y1 - 2002/9
N2 - Aspect, as one of the elements of verb mechanics, has been overlooked by many language designers. This paper argues that an artificial language, designed as a universal language for international communication, should incorporate the "universal" component of aspect found cross-linguistically in natural languages. In doing so, the paper develops a two-level model of situation aspect in which situation aspect is modelled as verb classes at the lexical level and as situation types at the sentential level. With a framework consisting of a lexicon, a layered clause structure and a set of mapping rules, the model is developed and tested using an English corpus and a Chinese corpus.
AB - Aspect, as one of the elements of verb mechanics, has been overlooked by many language designers. This paper argues that an artificial language, designed as a universal language for international communication, should incorporate the "universal" component of aspect found cross-linguistically in natural languages. In doing so, the paper develops a two-level model of situation aspect in which situation aspect is modelled as verb classes at the lexical level and as situation types at the sentential level. With a framework consisting of a lexicon, a layered clause structure and a set of mapping rules, the model is developed and tested using an English corpus and a Chinese corpus.
KW - situation aspect
KW - language universals
M3 - Journal article
VL - 3
SP - 139
EP - 177
JO - Journal of Universal Language
JF - Journal of Universal Language
IS - 2
ER -