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Verbal Aspects in Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Alfred Senn
Alfred Senn*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

The problem of verbal aspects received very little attention in Prokosch’s Comparative Germanic Grammar—only two and a half pages; and what is said there is phrased in vague generalities. Nothing definite is given referring specifically to Germanic languages. The Bibliographical Notes, which are quite abundant for other chapters, have not a single reference to this section of the book. This is in utter contrast with Behaghel’s treatment of the subject, who in his Deutsche Syntax devotes two and a half pages (printed in very small type) exclusively to bibliographical references, more than half of them dealing with perfective and imperfective aspects in Gothic, Old High German, Old Saxon, Old English, Middle High German, and Netherlandish. Additional bibliographical references can be found in C. R. Goedsche’s article on verbal aspect in German, and in the recent book by R. H. Ružić.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 25 , Issue 4-Part1: October-December , December 1949, pp. 402 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © 1949 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 E. Prokosch, A comparative Germanic grammar (Philadelphia, 1939). The chapter on tense and aspect is on pp. 144-6.

2 Otto Behaghel, Deutsche Syntax 2.93-5 (Heidelberg, 1924).

3 JEGP 33.506-19 (1934).

4 Rajko Hariton Ružić, The aspects of the verb in Serbo-Croatian (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1943). [Cf. the review in Lg. 19.272-5.] Two recent European publications deserve mention here: Hens Holt, Études d’aspect (Acta Jutlandica 15.2; Copenhagen, 1943), reviewed by Oswald Szemerényi in Études Slaves et Roumaines 1.194-8; Carl Göran Regnéll, Über den Ursprung des slavischen Verbalaspektes (Lund, 1944), reviewed by Szemerényi ibid. 1.55-8.

5 See also Milan Rešetar, Elementar-Grammatik der serbischen (kroatischen) Sprache, 2d ed. (Zagreb, 1922); A Meillet and A. Vaillant, Grammaire de la langue serbo-croate (Paris, 1924).

6 Zum Gebrauch der Aktionsarten im Litauischen, Studi Baltici 3.80-92 (1933).

7 Witold Doroszewski, O znaczeniu dokonanem osnów czasownikowych, Prace Filologiczne 10.192-309 (1926).

8 Cf. my article On the degree of kinship between Slavic and Baltic, The Slavonic and East European Review 20.251-65. Oswald Szemerényi’s article Sur l’unité linguistique balto-slave, Études Slaves et Roumaines 1.65-85, 159-73 (1948), brings into the discussion a few interesting arguments which seem to favor the traditional theory. Some of the similarities mentioned there can be explained as borrowings. Others need further discussion. Szemerényi wrote his study in 1944 without knowledge of mine.

9 A description of the Lithuanian practice is given in my Kleine litauische Sprachlehre 238-42 (Heidelberg, 1929), and in more detailed form, comparing it with Germanic and Slavic, in Studi Baltici 3.80-92.

10 Richard Newald, Einführung in die deutsche Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 141 (Lahr, 1947).

10a N. S. Deržavin, Učebnik russkoj grammatiki4 159-96 (Moscow-Petrograd, 1922).

11 The Slavonic and East European Review 20.251-65.

12 Wilhelm Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch6 194-203 (Heidelberg, 1920). For bibliography see also Wilhelm Braune, Gotische Grammatik12 128-33 (Halle a. d. Saale, 1947).

13 Joseph Mansion, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch2 46-8 (Heidelberg, 1932).

14 Victor Michels, Mittelhochdeutsches Elementarbuch4 197-200 (Heidelberg, 1921).