Book Notices

Reviewed by Heiko Narrog, Tohoku University

It is a well-known fact that among the Germanic languages only English has developed a truly grammaticalized progressive. The other languages have what are sometimes labeled as ‘progressive markers’, as opposed to the ‘progressive form’ of English. Furthermore, aspectual distinctions in the lexicon as systematic as those in Russian are also absent. It is thus generally assumed that the Germanic languages are not ‘aspect languages’, with the possible, but dubious exception of English. Henriksson’s book, originally his doctoral dissertation, deals with aspectual expressions mainly in German, and, for comparative purposes, in Swedish, against the background of the grammatically more developed aspectual systems in Russian and English.

After an introduction, H contrasts the concepts of ‘aspectuality’ and ‘aspect’ in general linguistics in Ch. 2. In Ch. 3, H discusses the internal structure of aspectuality, suggesting a two-dimensional model with four situation types (states, activities, accomplishments, and achievements) and two ‘perspectives’ (Blickwinkel)—the imperfective and the perfective. The ‘progressive’, then, is a subtype of the imperfective perspective.

In Ch. 4, H compares the expression of imperfectivity vs. perfectivity in German and Swedish. The author shows that, while both languages have no grammatical category exclusively dedicated to the expression of aspectual perspective, tense distinctions, temporal adverbs, and sometimes articles and light verb constructions may serve to express aspectual distinctions. Ch. 5 analyzes progressive markers in German and Swedish, showing that markers in both languages are not yet fully grammaticalized, but that the Swedish markers have proceeded further than their German counterparts, as reflected in less grammatical and stylistic constraints of their use, and, consequently, a higher frequency of use. It should be mentioned here that concerning the progressive markers in German, a considerably more detailed study was published in 2002 (Progressiv im Deutschen. Eine empirische Untersuchung im Kontrast mit Niederländisch und Englisch, by Olaf Krause). H’s work nevertheless deserves attention since it manages to frame the issue of grammaticalizing progressive markers in Germanic languages in a broader perspective of aspectuality and imperfectivity. H’s argumentation and style of writing is straightforward and clear, resulting in a contribution to the issue under discussion which is both valid and highly readable.

Die Interaktion der Aspektsemantik mit dem Lexikon im Marokkanisch-Arabischen. By Fadoua Chaara. (LINCOM studies in Afroasiatic linguistics 11.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2003. Pp. 211. ISBN 3895868701. $107.80.

Reviewed by Andrzej Zaborski, Jagiellonian University of Krakow

This book, based on Chaara’s doctoral dissertation, deals with the interaction of aspect semantics and lexicon in Moroccan Arabic. It is not clear which varieties of Moroccan Arabic can be considered as the database of this work. Contemporary Spoken Moroccan Arabic koine, which has not been codified and is still more or less fluctuating, is mentioned, but some examples are taken from William Marcais’s Textes arabes de Tanger (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1911). The sources of the many examples are systematically quoted, which means a happy return to the old, good practice.

The basic ‘modern’ assumption that grammatical aspect and ‘the character’ (Aktionsart in German terminology) of particular verbs must be analyzed together is reminiscent of the prestructuralist approach to syntactic analysis, in which grammatical aspect, tense, and mood are not only connected with particular lexical and contextual peculiarities but are also frequently overshadowed by them (well exemplified, in the case of Arabic linguistics, by the syntactic studies on Classical Arabic by H. Reckendorf).

C discusses theoretical studies by Carlota Smith, David R. Dowty, R. Bauerle, and Hans-Jürgen Sasse, and then presents the TAM system of Moroccan Arabic following the traditional Arabist division into perfective and imperfective. C then examines participles, which, in Moroccan Arabic as well as in many other Arabic dialects, can have both perfective/resultative and imperfective/processive/approximative and stative meanings; periphrastic constructions; and a semantic classification of verbs of Moroccan Arabic. The author offers a separate detailed analysis of four basic polysemic, auxiliary verbs. According to C, the main aspect difference in Moroccan Arabic exists not between telic and atelic verbs but (allegedly there is a strong tendency in this direction) between telic verbs that lexicalize the beginning and those that lexicalize the end of a situation (204). Moreover, a lexical form with different ‘senses’ cannot be simply grouped within a single well-defined aspect class—the particular ‘senses’ of the same verb can belong to different, even incompatible and opposite, aspect classes (205).

The book is a useful contribution to the study of Moroccan Arabic and is an important methodological novelty in the field of Arabic linguistics.