Telecity and Durativity A Study of Aspect in Dene Syline (Chipewyan) and German

This book studies the linguistic representation of events by examining the relevance of two salient event characteristics-- telicity and durativity-- to the grammatical system of natural language. The study of events, and of event characteristics, is an important testing ground for theories on the boundary between extralinguistic and linguistic knowledge, and on the relation between semantics and syntax. Telicity and durativity are notions which have become increasingly influential in both the semantic and the syntactic, i.e., grammaticalized, representation of events. The book furthers the understanding of events through the comparison of two genetically and typologically distinct languages, German and Dene Suliny (Chipewyan/Athapaskan), an indigenous language of Northwestern Canada. It contains the first in-depth documentation of the aspectual system of Dene Suliny, and a careful analysis of the aspectual behaviour of German particle verbs. A stringent methodology considers semantic, pragmatic, and grammatical factors in both languages. The data reveal that telicity and durativity belong to profoundly different semantic and grammatical domains, and that neither notion is grammaticalized universally. While both notions are represented semantically in German as well as in Dene Suliny, telicity is grammaticalized only in the former and durativity is grammaticalized only in the latter.Wilhelm, Andrea is the author of 'Telecity and Durativity A Study of Aspect in Dene Syline (Chipewyan) and German', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415976459 and ISBN 0415976456.