Distinguishing between the aspectual categories '(a)telic', '(im)perfective' and '(non)bounded'

Abstract

The linguistic literature often makes use of the terms '(im)perfective', '(a)telic' and/or '(non)bounded' (as well as other terms like 'terminative', 'conclusive', etc.). However, there is a lot of confusion about the definitions as well as the applicability and relevance of these concepts. In this article we aim to resolve this confusion. We will argue that, at least in English, these distinctions are a matter of 'grammatical aspect', 'ontological (lexical) aspect' and 'actualization aspect', respectively. We will define these categories carefully and show the relevance of each of them by identifying the level of analysis on which they are operative. The three aspectual categories all somehow have to do with the presence or absence of reference to a terminal point of a situation type or of the actualization of a situation on some linguistic level. On the morphological level, there is grammatical aspect (signalled by the verb form), which involves the distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect. In English this distinction happens to coincide with the distinction between nonprogressive and progressive aspect, respectively, because progressive aspect is the only kind of imperfective aspect that can be expressed by a special verb form. On the level of the conceptualization of situation types there is the distinction between telic and atelic situation-templates (which are verbs, verb phrases or larger predicate constituents) and between telic and atelic situation types. On the level of reference to actualization of situations there is the distinction between bounded and nonbounded clauses and between bounded and nonbounded actualizations of situations. The article shows not only how the three aspectual categories should be kept apart but also how they interact to constitute the aspectual interpretation of a sentence.