Aspectual system of Lithuanian (with references to areal data)

The paper deals with verbal aspect in standard Lithuanian with reference to dialectal and areal data. The traditional view that Lithuanian possesses a binary category of aspect is rejected, since no strictly grammatical (morphosyntactic) phenomena are associated with either of the alleged aspects, and because the binary classification is too coarse to adequately represent the aspectual properties of Lithuanian verbs. Instead, a more detailed classification of predicates into actional (situation) types is proposed. Major mechanisms of aspectual derivation, such as telicizing prefixation, delimitative, semelfactive, and iterative formations are described. In addition to the traditionally recognized Past Habitual, another inflectional category with aspectual meaning is described for the first time, i.e. the Contituative expressed by the “external” prefix (te)be-. Periphrastic aspectual constructions, such as the Perfect/Resultative and the Avertive, are also analysed