Xiao, R. Z. and McEnery, A. M. (2002) Situation aspect as a universal aspect : implications for artificial languages. Journal of Universal Language, 3 (2). pp. 139-177.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Aspect, as one of the elements of verb mechanics, has been overlooked by many language designers. This paper argues that an artificial language, designed as a universal language for international communication, should incorporate the "universal" component of aspect found cross-linguistically in natural languages. In doing so, the paper develops a two-level model of situation aspect in which situation aspect is modelled as verb classes at the lexical level and as situation types at the sentential level. With a framework consisting of a lexicon, a layered clause structure and a set of mapping rules, the model is developed and tested using an English corpus and a Chinese corpus.