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Part of
Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond
Edited by Robert Crellin and Thomas Jügel
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 352] 2020
► pp. 411–434

Chapter 12
The Gothic perfective constructions in contrast to West Germanic

| University Zielona Góra, Poland
The paper deals with selected questions of ‘perfectivity’ as both aspect and tense function in Gothic in comparison with old and contemporary West Germanic languages. Perfectivity is treated as a functional category which originated in verbal aspect, but which has been re-analysed in many languages which have lost aspect as a grammatically marked opposition. In old East Germanic (Gothic), the prefix ga- originally marking terminative aktionsart was grammaticalised as the marker of perfective aspect. This is still reflected in Gothic, but lost in West Germanic. Hence, the development of perfectivity in Old Germanic is connected with the development of perfective aspect. However, in old West Germanic languages comparable prefixed compounds have already lost their aspect-marking function and could be used as general semantic modifiers of related simplex verbs. Beside the perfective-marking prefix, perfectivity also could be encoded by means of periphrastic forms, which gradually developed from aspect to tense function, so that in contemporary West Germanic languages aspectual (perfective) readings of periphrastic constructions are extremely peripheral.
Keywords: viewpoint aspect, lexical aspect, Gothic ga-compounds, periphrastic constructions
Article outline
  • 1.Introductory remark on the term ‘perfect’
  • 2.The Gothic ga-compounds as viewpoint-aspect markers
  • 3.‘Aspectual-like’ prefixations vs. periphrastic constructions in Western Germanic
  • 4.Periphrastic constructions with perfective function in Gothic and their counterparts in Old Western Germanic languages
  • 5.A remark on Modern German passive constructions
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Sources
Published online: 23 September 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.352.12kot
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