Some Aspects of Aspect in Wá∙šiw

Abstract

This paper provides a semantic description of some aspectual phenomena in Wá∙šiw, a language in which grammatical aspect is not obligatorily marked on verbs. It is shown that aspectually unmarked clauses can receive either perfective or imperfective interpretations, and I provide tests for distinguishing lexical aspectual classes in the language. The paper then turns to a description of aspectual phenomena that have not been discussed in detail in the previous literature, namely change of state and egressive aspect (event termination). Finally, I argue against an aspectual treatment of two inflectional morphemes that were previously labeled as aspects. The paper contributes to our understanding of aspectual and temporal phenomena in an understudied language and provides a blueprint for the further study of other aspectual phenomena in Wá∙šiw.