Temporal Characteristics of Japanese Verbs from the Contrastive Perspective

Abstract

In this study we investigate an alternative way to look into the aspectual properties of Polish and Japanese verbs from the contrastive perspective. The analysis is based on a formationally motivated classification of Polish aspect forms put forward in Młynarczyk (2004). Polish verbs are divided into five classes exhibiting a high degree of correspondence with the Vendlerian verb categories, being also compatible with the main stream accounts of Japanese aspectual meanings. In the core part of the paper, verbal forms of Polish and Japanese are tentatively contrasted within the grid of 15 Aktionsarten yielded by the above verb classes.