Theories of verb aspect have often assumed feature-based aspectual classifications (e.g., Smith (1997)). In this paper, it is argued that aspectual taxonomies based on feature specification are not adequate in that the features such as [durative] and [telic] are problematic in their application. As an alternative, we propose to adopt the system in Carlson (1981), where three grammatical criteria are used for categorizing inherent verb aspect types. In the proposed system, achievement verbs in Smith (1997) are divided into two different classes, and semelfactives are not treated as an independent category any more. As for conventional stative verbs, the distinction between statives proper and dynamic states is made. The necessity of such a taxonomy of aspect is supported by both Korean and English data.
1. Introduction
2. Problems with Feature-based Analyses
3. An Alternative Analysis: Inherent Verb Aspect and Three Criteria
4. Analysis of Korean data
5. Further Questions and Implications