ASPECTUAL CLASSES OF EVENTS

Aspectual Classes of Events



Aspectual Classes of Events

Introduction

Aspectual Classes of Events or Aktionsarten, represents the various kinds of events or situations that have distinction among predicates or verb phrases. Works of philosophers, especially Vendler, have contributed to classification of the events in four heads, with each event characterized by one of the 3 distinctions: telicity, duration and static v/s dynamic.

Vendler's Four Aspectual Classes

An event that has a definite natural finishing point is referred to as telic; whereas an event that does not hold so is atelic. For example, eat an apple is telic in that the event does not hold any continuation whereas read a book is atelic, implying continuation of the event. A 'durative' event occupies time, in contrast to a non-durative event, which is idealized to a point in time. Moreover, a non-durative event usually denotes front edges of awareness. Phrases like 'recognize a car' or 'notice a man', mark an awareness edge and shows that the event does not hold any duration. The distinction between static and dynamic events is that of state and all the rest, collectively referred to as events. A state predicate does not have a natural beginning or end and it usually marks an internally uniform position. Examples of states include be hungry¸ and contain money.

Having described the distinction categories, we now move towards the four aspectual classes of events. These four main Aktionsarten are: states, activities (also called processes), accomplishments and achievements.

States are atelic, that is, they have no natural boundaries or culminations that constitute finishing point. States are durative; they occupy time and said to last for minutes, hours days or years. And most important; states are static; nothing happens in a state. State simply provides a 'be' implication such as he is asleep (be asleep)

Processes ...