| Abstract [eng] |
The Range of the Perfect in Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Portuguese and Southern Italian dialects This MA thesis is focused on the perfect category and on the resultative constructions that have certain perfect-like qualities in four languages: namely, in Lithuanian, in Ukrainian, in Portuguese, and in Southern Italian altomeridionali dialects. The form, the use and the semantics of these perfects and perfect-like constructions are being analyzed. The work is based on the theory of grammaticalization and its goal is to identify the stages of the drift toward a past tense for perfects and the drift towards a perfect for resultative constructions. The thesis consists of two chapters – in the first chapter, the notion of the perfect category is discussed, along with its grammaticalization stages, certain semantic properties and its semantic types or readings; in the second chapter, the perfects and the perfect-like resultative constructions of each of the four languages are being analyzed. Throughout the four languages selected, ten constructions have been analyzed and identified as perfects or as resultative constructions not (yet) considered to be perfects. I conclude the final part of the work with a summary of all of them and with their comparison from the point of view of grammaticalization – from resultatives to perfects, and from perfects to past time reference. |
