Nouns Affect Aspect Syntactically

Abstract

In this paper, I offer one argument for the universality of the effect that a noun has on the aspectual properties of the verb phrase based on a perviously unnoticed aspectual asymmetry between count and mass nouns in their aspectual effect. Both Slavic and Germanic show this asymmetry. Using this aspectual asymmetry as a litmus test, I evaluate existing semantic and syntactic accounts of the aspectual effect of the noun to determine which of the two components, syntax or semantics, is most likely the locus of aspectual effect of the noun. I conclude that syntactic accounts can handle these aspectual facts in the most parsimonious manner.