Polish verbal aspect and its Finnish statistical correlates in the light of a parallel corpus
Edyta Jurkiewicz-Rohrbacher · Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja · 2019
The objective of this contrastive research is (1) to determine the rules of correlation between the language-specific category Polish Verbal Aspect (PVA) and the elements of Finnish clause, whilst (2) re-examining the semantic scope of PVA, and (3) improving the definition of the cross-linguistically valid comparative concept of aspectuality. The investigation is empirical, and based on 900 Polish-Finnish clauses compiled in the form of a bidirectional parallel corpus stratified in three samples according to text types. The corpus is annotated on three levels, following the scalar model of temporality: the morphosyntactic and semantic clause-internal levels, as well as the clause-external level, including such elements as taxis and the quantificational-pragmatic context, temporally located (existentially quantified) situation, and generic or generalising interpretation (universal quantification). The reasoning in the study is mostly inductive. In contrast to the previous studies on aspect, the work is organised bottom-up. The data is approached quantitatively, using state-of-the-art methods. First, the descriptive statistics of temporal markers in the corpus are discussed. Afterwards, the data is summarised in a statistical model and visualised in a hierarchical cluster structure. Particularly interesting correlations (e.g. tense-aspect or case-aspect) are further validated with the random-forests method. The quantitative results yield a two-layered model of aspectuality, distinguishing between two levels: the outer, temporal-deictic level and the inner level related to the notion of change in time. Thus, the study confirms the validity of multi-layered concepts of aspectuality as previously postulated. As to language-specific results, PVA correlates with Polish and Finnish tenses within the outer, temporal-deictic layer. This interaction involves the third element – temporal quantification. The inner layer is realised in Finnish in the predicate-argument structure, and therefore, the Finnish argument case-marking is the closest correlate of PVA. Here the most important systematic opposition are between the lative and essive semantic cases (including Translative and Essive), and between the Total and Partitive type of object. The notion of change which is the semantically relevant factor is treated as gradable opposition (next to the traditionally used polar and equipollent oppositions), and therefore, the formal comparison between PVA and Finnish differential object marking is possible within the scalar description. The Finnish derivational valency modifiers (transtivisers and detransitivisers), however, do not seem to play any significant role in the marking of aspectual oppositions. Neither do lexical temporal expressions play much role here, as their generally low frequency does not deviate from the frequency of Polish expressions of that kind. In particular, the study shows that the measure adverbials in the object cases are quite infrequent in language use. Therefore, their contribution in expressing aspect is marginal.