On how Compositional Aspect and the Article-Aspect Interplay Ought to Appear in English Comprehensive Grammars

Abstract

Two recent publications on compositional aspect (CA) and the article-aspect interplay (AAI) in English argue that these cross-language phenomena are so fundamental that they must be taught to learners of English at higher levels and incorporated into the contents of comprehensive English grammars (CEGs). This paper fully endorses the idea that English language teaching (ELT) at higher levels – intermediate to advanced, must include CA-AAI and that CA-AAI must also become part of the lingusitic knowledge of native speakers, but focuses on some aspects of the CA theory that are insufficiently covered and need further elaboration. Outlined and analyzed are some CA theory issues that must be appropriately handled in CEGs – and in intermediate/advanced ELT in general. It is high time for the domains of aspect, tense, nominal determination, lexical semantics and aspectually relevant adverbials to be describеd in CEGs in terms of CA and according to the latest achievements of theoretical linguistics. This will provide a much better picture of the structure, rules and regularities of the world’s most important language today. Keywords: Compositional and verbal aspect, article-aspect interplay, perfectivity- imperfectivity, boundedness/non-boundedness, definite/indefinite/zero article