The Perfective present in Lithuanian
Abstract
This article offers a picture of the Lithuanian perfective present, with particular emphasis on the treatment of habituality and genericity, the use of aspect forms in narrative text types, and peripheral constructionalised and often pragmatically specialised uses of perfective presents partly harking back to the actional differences underlying the aspect opposition in Baltic as well as in Slavonic. The introductory part of the article offers a general outline of the Lithuanian aspect system and briefly discusses the vexed question of the existence or non-existence of a grammatical category of aspect in Lithuanian. It is argued that, contrary to a widely held view, the Baltic languages have a grammatical category of aspect, though weakly grammaticalised.
Keywords
Lithuanian, Baltic, verbal aspect, perfectivity, aspectual class, viewpoint aspect, present tense, telicity, progressive, habituality, narrative present, prefixation
References
Arkadiev, Peter M. 2011. Aspect and actionality in Lithuanian on a typological background. In: Daniel Petit, ed., Langues baltiques, langues slaves. Paris: Editions CNRS, 61–92.
Arkadiev, Peter M. 2014. Towards an areal typology of prefixal perfectivization. Scando-Slavica 2014, 384–405.
Arkadiev, Peter M. 2015. Areal’naja tipologija prefiksal’nogo perfektiva [Areal Typology of the Prefixal Perfective]. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury.
Berglund, Jonny. 2008. A Construction Grammar Approach to the Phrase Why Don’t You. BA project, Stockholm University.
Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Alessandro Lenci. 2012. Habituality, Pluractionality, and Imperfectivity. In: Robert I. Binnick, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. New York: Oxford University Press, 852–880.
Biasio, Marco. 2019. Se non potere è non volere. L’evoluzione diacronica del prezens naprasnogo ožidanija. In: Iliyana Krapova, Svetlana Nistratova & Luisa Ruvoletto, eds., Studi di linguistica slava. Nuove prospettive e metodologie di ricerca. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 79–92. http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-368-7/004
Bogusławski, Andrzej. 1985. The Problem of the negated imperative in perfective verbs revisited. Russian Linguistics 9.2–3, 225–239.
Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 1959. Nastojaščee istoričeskoe v slavjanskix jazykax s točki zrenija glagol’nogo vida [The historical present in Slavic languages from the viewpoint of aspect]. Slavjanskoe jazykoznanije, 48–58.
Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 1972. Vid i vremja russkogo glagola [Aspect and tense of the Russian verb]. Moscow: Prosveščenie.
Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 2005 [1958] Nastojaščee istoričeskoe glagolov soveršennogo i nesoveršennogo vida v slavjanskix jazykax [The historical present of perfective and imperfective verbs in Slavic languages]. In: Aleksandr V. Bondarko. Teorija morfologičeskix kategorij i aspektologičeskie issledovanija. Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskix kul’tur, 425–608.
Buch, Tamara. 1959. Zur Aspektfrage im Litauischen. Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale, Sezione Slava 2, 69. Cited from: Tamara Buch, Opuscula Lithuanica, ed. Wojciech Smoczyński. Warsaw: Warsaw University, 1998, 61.
Bybee, Joan & Östen Dahl. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language 13.1, 51–103.
Carlson, Greg. 2012. Habitual and generic aspect. In: Robert I. Binnick, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. New York: Oxford University Press, 828–851.
Comrie, Bernard. 1975. Aspect. An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, Östen. 1974. Some suggestions for a logic of aspects. In: Gunnar Jacobsson, ed., Göteborg Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists in Warsaw, August 21–7, Göteborg: Slavica Gothoburgensia 6, 21–35.
Dahl, Östen. 1981. On the definition of the telic-atelic (bounded-nonbounded) distinction. In: Philip Tedeschi & Annie Zaenen, eds., Tense and Aspect (= Syntax and Semantics 14). New York: Academic Press, 79-90.
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Blackwell.
de Wit, Astrid. 2017. The Present Perfect Paradox Across Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dickey, Stephen M. 2000. Parameters of Slavic Aspect. A Cognitive Approach. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Endzelin, Jan. 1923. Lettische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1990. Tense and Narrativity: from Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction. University of Texas Press.
Geniušienė, Emma. 2020. Vid i vremja glagola v litovskom jazyke [Verbal tense and aspect in Lithuanian]. In: V. S. Xrakovskij & A. L. Mal’čukov, eds., Ierarxija i vzaimodejstvie grammatičeskix kategorij glagola [Hierararchy and Interaction of the Grammatical Categories of the Verb]. St Petersburg: Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 503–540.
Greenberg, Marc L. 2006. A Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene. University of Kansas. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/5469/m.l.greenberg_slovene_grammar_8dec06.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Hauzenberga-Šturma, Edīte. 1979. Zur Frage des Verbalaspekts im Lettischen. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 93, 279–316.
Holvoet, Axel. 1991. Semantic variables and the meaning of Polish verbal aspect. In: A. A. Barentsen, , B. M. Groen & R. Sprenger, R., eds., Studies in West Slavic and Baltic Linguistics. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 167–179.
Holvoet, Axel. 2014. Phasal and proximative complementation: Lithuanian baigti. Baltic Linguistics 5, 81–122.
Kozhanov, Kirill. 2021. Pluractionality in Lithuanian: a tale of two suffixes. Baltic Linguistics 12: Studies in the TAME Domain in Baltic and Its Neighbours (thematic issue), 323–347.
Langacker, Ronald. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 2. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Malchukov, Andrej L. 2009. Incompatible categories: Resolving the ‘present perfective paradox’. In: Lotte Hogeweg, Helen de Hoop & Andrej L. Malchukov, eds., Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect, and Modality. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 13–32.
Maslov Jurij S. 2004 [1964]. Zametki o vidovoj defektivnosti [Notes on aspectual defectiveness]. In: Jurij S. Maslov. Izbrannye trudy: Aspektologija. Obščee jazykoznanije. Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury, 411–425.
Napoli, Maria. 2006. Aspect and Actionality in Homeric Greek. A Contrastive Analysis. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Nau, Nicole, Kirill Kozhanov, Liina Lindström, Asta Laugalienė & Paweł Brudzyński. 2019. Pseudocoordination with ‘take’ in Baltic and its neighbours. Baltic Linguistics 10: Minor Grams in Baltic, Slavonic and Fennic (thematic issue), 237–306.
Panov, Vladimir. 2021. Untangling the functions of aspectual distinctions in the Lithuanian imperative: a typological view. Baltic Linguistics 12: Studies in the TAME Domain in Baltic and Its Neighbours (thematic issue), 295–321.
Safarewicz, Jan. 1938. L’aspect verbal en vieux lituanien. In: Actes du quatrième Congrès International de Linguistes. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 210–214. English translation in: id., Linguistic Studies, The Hague-Paris: Mouton & Warsaw: PWN Polish Scientific Publishers, 1974, 386–390.
Sawicki, Lea. 2000. Remarks on the category of aspect in Lithuanian. Linguistica Baltica 8, 133–142.
Sawicki, Lea. 2010. Preverbation and narrativity in Lithuanian. The distribution of finite simplex and compound verbs in narrative main clauses. Baltic Linguistics 1, 167–192.
Sayeed, Ollie & Bert Vaux. 2017. The evolution of Armenian. In: Jared Klein, Brian Joseph, Matthias Fritz & Mark Wenthe, eds., Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics, Vol. 2. Berlin etc.: De Gruyter Mouton, 1146–1167.
Shluinsky, Andrey. 2009. Individual-level meanings in the semantic domain of pluractionality. In: Patience Epps & Alexandre Arkhipov, eds., New Challenges in Typology: Transcending the Borders and Refining the Distinctions. Berlin: de Gruyter, 175–197.
Smith, Carlota S. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Smith, Carlota S. 2003. Modes of Discourse. The Local Structure of Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stevanović, Mihailo. 1967. Funkcije i značenja glagolskih vremena [The functions and meanings of verbal tenses]. Belgrade: Naučno delo. (= Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti: Posebna izdanja 422.)
Stojnova, Natal’ja. 2016. Nefutural’nye upotreblenija buduščego vremeni [Non-future uses of the future tense]. Materialy dla projekta korpusnogo opisanija russkoj grammatiki. Manuscript available at http://rusgram.ru.
Stunová, Anna. 1993. A Contrastive Study of Russian and Czech Aspect: Invariance vs Discourse. University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation.
Ulvydas, Kazys, ed. 1971. Lietuvių kalbos gramatika. ii. Morfologija [Lithuanian Grammar ii. Morphology]. Vilnius: Mintis.
Wiemer, Björn. 2021. Zum Verhältnis zwischen Präsens und Futur im Litauischen: Präliminaria im Bereich sprechzeitenthobener Propositionen. In: Peter Arkadiev, Jurgis Pakerys, Inesa Šeškauskienė, Vaiva Žeimantienė, eds., Studies in Baltic and other Languages. A Festschrift for Axel Holvoet on the occasion of his 65th birthday (Vilnius University Open Series, Vol. 16). Vilnius: Vilnius University Press, 387–415.
Wiemer, Björn. 2021. Zum szenischen Präsens im Tschechischen. In: Bernhard Brehmer,
Anja Gattnar & Tatiana Perevozchikova, eds., Von A wie Aspekt bis Z wie zdvořilost. Ein Kaleidoskop der Slavistik für Tilman Berger zum 65. Geburtstag. Tübingen: University Press, 65–75.
Zaliznjak, Andrej A. 1990. Ob odnom upotreblenii prezensa soveršennogo vida (prezens naprasnogo ožidanija) [On a certain type of use of the perfective present (the present of frustrated expectation)]. In: Zygmunt Saloni, ed., Metody formalne w opisie języków słowiańskich. Białystok: Filia Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego w Białymstoku, 109–115.
Zaliznjak, Anna A. 2015. Prezens soveršennogo vida v značenii nastojaščego vremeni [The perfective present in present-tense meaning]. In: Anna A. Zaliznjak, Irina L. Mikaėljan, Aleksej D. Šmelev, Russkaja aspektologija. V zaščitu vidovoj pary [Russian Aspectology. In Defence of the Aspectual Pair]. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury, 314–329.
Arkadiev, Peter M. 2014. Towards an areal typology of prefixal perfectivization. Scando-Slavica 2014, 384–405.
Arkadiev, Peter M. 2015. Areal’naja tipologija prefiksal’nogo perfektiva [Areal Typology of the Prefixal Perfective]. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury.
Berglund, Jonny. 2008. A Construction Grammar Approach to the Phrase Why Don’t You. BA project, Stockholm University.
Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Alessandro Lenci. 2012. Habituality, Pluractionality, and Imperfectivity. In: Robert I. Binnick, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. New York: Oxford University Press, 852–880.
Biasio, Marco. 2019. Se non potere è non volere. L’evoluzione diacronica del prezens naprasnogo ožidanija. In: Iliyana Krapova, Svetlana Nistratova & Luisa Ruvoletto, eds., Studi di linguistica slava. Nuove prospettive e metodologie di ricerca. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 79–92. http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-368-7/004
Bogusławski, Andrzej. 1985. The Problem of the negated imperative in perfective verbs revisited. Russian Linguistics 9.2–3, 225–239.
Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 1959. Nastojaščee istoričeskoe v slavjanskix jazykax s točki zrenija glagol’nogo vida [The historical present in Slavic languages from the viewpoint of aspect]. Slavjanskoe jazykoznanije, 48–58.
Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 1972. Vid i vremja russkogo glagola [Aspect and tense of the Russian verb]. Moscow: Prosveščenie.
Bondarko, Aleksandr V. 2005 [1958] Nastojaščee istoričeskoe glagolov soveršennogo i nesoveršennogo vida v slavjanskix jazykax [The historical present of perfective and imperfective verbs in Slavic languages]. In: Aleksandr V. Bondarko. Teorija morfologičeskix kategorij i aspektologičeskie issledovanija. Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskix kul’tur, 425–608.
Buch, Tamara. 1959. Zur Aspektfrage im Litauischen. Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale, Sezione Slava 2, 69. Cited from: Tamara Buch, Opuscula Lithuanica, ed. Wojciech Smoczyński. Warsaw: Warsaw University, 1998, 61.
Bybee, Joan & Östen Dahl. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language 13.1, 51–103.
Carlson, Greg. 2012. Habitual and generic aspect. In: Robert I. Binnick, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. New York: Oxford University Press, 828–851.
Comrie, Bernard. 1975. Aspect. An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, Östen. 1974. Some suggestions for a logic of aspects. In: Gunnar Jacobsson, ed., Göteborg Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists in Warsaw, August 21–7, Göteborg: Slavica Gothoburgensia 6, 21–35.
Dahl, Östen. 1981. On the definition of the telic-atelic (bounded-nonbounded) distinction. In: Philip Tedeschi & Annie Zaenen, eds., Tense and Aspect (= Syntax and Semantics 14). New York: Academic Press, 79-90.
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Blackwell.
de Wit, Astrid. 2017. The Present Perfect Paradox Across Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dickey, Stephen M. 2000. Parameters of Slavic Aspect. A Cognitive Approach. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Endzelin, Jan. 1923. Lettische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1990. Tense and Narrativity: from Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction. University of Texas Press.
Geniušienė, Emma. 2020. Vid i vremja glagola v litovskom jazyke [Verbal tense and aspect in Lithuanian]. In: V. S. Xrakovskij & A. L. Mal’čukov, eds., Ierarxija i vzaimodejstvie grammatičeskix kategorij glagola [Hierararchy and Interaction of the Grammatical Categories of the Verb]. St Petersburg: Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 503–540.
Greenberg, Marc L. 2006. A Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene. University of Kansas. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/5469/m.l.greenberg_slovene_grammar_8dec06.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Hauzenberga-Šturma, Edīte. 1979. Zur Frage des Verbalaspekts im Lettischen. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 93, 279–316.
Holvoet, Axel. 1991. Semantic variables and the meaning of Polish verbal aspect. In: A. A. Barentsen, , B. M. Groen & R. Sprenger, R., eds., Studies in West Slavic and Baltic Linguistics. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 167–179.
Holvoet, Axel. 2014. Phasal and proximative complementation: Lithuanian baigti. Baltic Linguistics 5, 81–122.
Kozhanov, Kirill. 2021. Pluractionality in Lithuanian: a tale of two suffixes. Baltic Linguistics 12: Studies in the TAME Domain in Baltic and Its Neighbours (thematic issue), 323–347.
Langacker, Ronald. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 2. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Malchukov, Andrej L. 2009. Incompatible categories: Resolving the ‘present perfective paradox’. In: Lotte Hogeweg, Helen de Hoop & Andrej L. Malchukov, eds., Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect, and Modality. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 13–32.
Maslov Jurij S. 2004 [1964]. Zametki o vidovoj defektivnosti [Notes on aspectual defectiveness]. In: Jurij S. Maslov. Izbrannye trudy: Aspektologija. Obščee jazykoznanije. Moskva: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury, 411–425.
Napoli, Maria. 2006. Aspect and Actionality in Homeric Greek. A Contrastive Analysis. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Nau, Nicole, Kirill Kozhanov, Liina Lindström, Asta Laugalienė & Paweł Brudzyński. 2019. Pseudocoordination with ‘take’ in Baltic and its neighbours. Baltic Linguistics 10: Minor Grams in Baltic, Slavonic and Fennic (thematic issue), 237–306.
Panov, Vladimir. 2021. Untangling the functions of aspectual distinctions in the Lithuanian imperative: a typological view. Baltic Linguistics 12: Studies in the TAME Domain in Baltic and Its Neighbours (thematic issue), 295–321.
Safarewicz, Jan. 1938. L’aspect verbal en vieux lituanien. In: Actes du quatrième Congrès International de Linguistes. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 210–214. English translation in: id., Linguistic Studies, The Hague-Paris: Mouton & Warsaw: PWN Polish Scientific Publishers, 1974, 386–390.
Sawicki, Lea. 2000. Remarks on the category of aspect in Lithuanian. Linguistica Baltica 8, 133–142.
Sawicki, Lea. 2010. Preverbation and narrativity in Lithuanian. The distribution of finite simplex and compound verbs in narrative main clauses. Baltic Linguistics 1, 167–192.
Sayeed, Ollie & Bert Vaux. 2017. The evolution of Armenian. In: Jared Klein, Brian Joseph, Matthias Fritz & Mark Wenthe, eds., Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics, Vol. 2. Berlin etc.: De Gruyter Mouton, 1146–1167.
Shluinsky, Andrey. 2009. Individual-level meanings in the semantic domain of pluractionality. In: Patience Epps & Alexandre Arkhipov, eds., New Challenges in Typology: Transcending the Borders and Refining the Distinctions. Berlin: de Gruyter, 175–197.
Smith, Carlota S. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Smith, Carlota S. 2003. Modes of Discourse. The Local Structure of Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stevanović, Mihailo. 1967. Funkcije i značenja glagolskih vremena [The functions and meanings of verbal tenses]. Belgrade: Naučno delo. (= Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti: Posebna izdanja 422.)
Stojnova, Natal’ja. 2016. Nefutural’nye upotreblenija buduščego vremeni [Non-future uses of the future tense]. Materialy dla projekta korpusnogo opisanija russkoj grammatiki. Manuscript available at http://rusgram.ru.
Stunová, Anna. 1993. A Contrastive Study of Russian and Czech Aspect: Invariance vs Discourse. University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation.
Ulvydas, Kazys, ed. 1971. Lietuvių kalbos gramatika. ii. Morfologija [Lithuanian Grammar ii. Morphology]. Vilnius: Mintis.
Wiemer, Björn. 2021. Zum Verhältnis zwischen Präsens und Futur im Litauischen: Präliminaria im Bereich sprechzeitenthobener Propositionen. In: Peter Arkadiev, Jurgis Pakerys, Inesa Šeškauskienė, Vaiva Žeimantienė, eds., Studies in Baltic and other Languages. A Festschrift for Axel Holvoet on the occasion of his 65th birthday (Vilnius University Open Series, Vol. 16). Vilnius: Vilnius University Press, 387–415.
Wiemer, Björn. 2021. Zum szenischen Präsens im Tschechischen. In: Bernhard Brehmer,
Anja Gattnar & Tatiana Perevozchikova, eds., Von A wie Aspekt bis Z wie zdvořilost. Ein Kaleidoskop der Slavistik für Tilman Berger zum 65. Geburtstag. Tübingen: University Press, 65–75.
Zaliznjak, Andrej A. 1990. Ob odnom upotreblenii prezensa soveršennogo vida (prezens naprasnogo ožidanija) [On a certain type of use of the perfective present (the present of frustrated expectation)]. In: Zygmunt Saloni, ed., Metody formalne w opisie języków słowiańskich. Białystok: Filia Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego w Białymstoku, 109–115.
Zaliznjak, Anna A. 2015. Prezens soveršennogo vida v značenii nastojaščego vremeni [The perfective present in present-tense meaning]. In: Anna A. Zaliznjak, Irina L. Mikaėljan, Aleksej D. Šmelev, Russkaja aspektologija. V zaščitu vidovoj pary [Russian Aspectology. In Defence of the Aspectual Pair]. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury, 314–329.
