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

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Published : 2022-01-03


Holvoet, A., Daugavet, A., & Žeimantienė, V. (2022). The Perfective present in Lithuanian. Baltic Linguistics, 12(12), 249-293. https://doi.org/10.32798/bl.925

Axel Holvoet 
Vilnius University  Lithuania
Anna Daugavet 
Vaiva Žeimantienė 
Vilnius University  Lithuania