This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details.(April 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
In linguistics, semelfactives are a type of aktionsart or lexical aspect, which is a property of verbs and other predicates representing the temporal flow of an event. A semelfactive describes a very brief event which ends by returning to its initial state, making it capable of being repeated. Semelfactive verbs in English include "blink", "sneeze", and "knock".
As a kind of aktionsart, the temporal information of semelfactives is incorporated into the verb's root itself, rather than through auxiliary verbs or morphological inflections as in other types of aspect. The use of the term "semelfactive" is analogous to iterative aspect in the realm of grammatical aspect.
A semelfactive event is punctual or non-durative, since it happens suddenly and lasts only a moment. According to Bernard Comrie, who first posited the idea of semelfactive as a category of aktionsart, the event represented by a semelfactive verb is also perfective (treated as a complete action with no explicit internal temporal structure) and atelic (not having a goal).[1] However, Kearns notes there is no consensus on whether semelfactives should be considered telic or atelic. Kearns considers semelfactives to be bounded but atelic, where telicity is understood as a kind of boundedness.[2]
^Comrie, Bernard (1976). Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521290456.
^Kearns, Kate (2011). Semantics (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
In linguistics, semelfactives are a type of aktionsart or lexical aspect, which is a property of verbs and other predicates representing the temporal...
In linguistics, the iterative aspect (abbreviated ITER), also called "semelfactive", "event-internal pluractionality", or "multiplicative", is a grammatical...
his discussion of lexical aspect, Bernard Comrie included the category semelfactive or punctual events such as "sneeze". His divisions of the categories...
the lexical semantics of the root verb: telic and non-telic actions, semelfactives, durative and non-durative, punctual, etc. There are selectional restrictions...
aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see "Grammatical...
походила по квартире и наконец решила уйти. resultative с- Completed semelfactive movement in opposite directions, there and back. *only formed with multidirectional...
("I painted a picture"), achievements ("I bought"), and punctual, or semelfactive, events ("I sneezed"). These distinctions are often relevant syntactically...
secondhand imperative) SEJ sejunct (opposite of conjunct) SEM SMLF, SEMEL semelfactive aspect ('once') SEM special evaluative marker SEN SNS, SENS, SENS.EV...
expanded the list of categories to reflect resultant situations, adding semelfactives and complex predicates–active accomplishments and causatives." Cover...
prefix, as in yishcha "I'm crying." with either a yi- transitional or yi- semelfactive prefix in position 6 (and no prefix in position 7). The perfective indicates...
with different aspects, such as momentaneous, continuative, repetitive, semelfactive, etc. For example, a stem can be momentaneous imperfective, momentaneous...
Suffixes I — Plural Agent II — Reduplication III — Essive, Terrestrial IV — Semelfactive, Inceptive, Plural Act, Plural Movement Middle Group Suffixes Va — Directionals...