linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, boundedness is a

semantic feature A semantic feature is a component of the concept associated with a lexical item ('female' + 'performer' = 'actress'). More generally, it can also be a component of the concept associated with any grammatical unit, whether composed or not ('female' + ...

that relates to an understanding of the referential limits of a

lexical item In lexicography, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words (catena (linguistics), catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take ca ...

. Fundamentally, words that specify a spatio-temporal demarcation of their reference are considered ''bounded'', while words that allow for a fluidly interpretable

referent A referent ( ) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken o ...

are considered ''unbounded''. This distinction also relies on the divisibility of the lexical item's referent into distinct segments, or strata. Though this feature most often distinguishes

countability In mathematics, a set is countable if either it is finite or it can be made in one to one correspondence with the set of natural numbers. Equivalently, a set is ''countable'' if there exists an injective function from it into the natural numbers ...

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s and aspect in

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

s, it applies more generally to any syntactic category.

Boundedness in verbs

For verbs, certain

grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time. For instance, perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference t ...

s express boundedness. Boundedness is characteristic of

perfective aspect The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole, i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the ...

s such as the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

aorist Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...

and the Spanish

preterite The preterite or preterit ( ; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple p ...

. The

simple past The simple past, past simple, or past indefinite, in English equivalent to the preterite, is the basic form of the past tense in Modern English. It is used principally to describe events in the past, although it also has some other uses. Regular E ...

of English commonly expresses a bounded event ("I found out"), but sometimes expresses, for example, a stative ("I knew"). The perfective aspect often includes a contextual variation similar to an

inchoative aspect Inchoative aspect (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated or ), also known as inceptive, is a grammatical aspect, referring to the beginning of a state. It can be found in conservative Indo-European languages such as Latin and Lithuanian lang ...

, and expresses the beginning of a

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

. In German, the modal particle "mal" can be used to express that the speaker renounces the exactness and temporal unambiguity of the action of the verb, favoring vagueness and non-commitment.

Boundedness in nouns

In order for a noun to be semantically ''bounded'', its referent item, whether tangible or abstract, must have clearly defined limits on the extent and content of what it encompasses. Structurally, ''bounded'' and ''unbounded'' nouns correlate to a number of descriptive criteria. The first criterion is ''internal homogeneity''; while the referent of ''bounded'' nouns can be composed of distinct segments, an ''unbounded'' noun typically refers to something which is considered a cohesive expanse. The next criteria are the interrelated concepts of ''expansibility'' and ''replicability''. Because ''unbounded'' nouns refer to ''internally homogeneous'' referents, any part of their expansive referent could be analyzed as an instance of that noun. Further, any removal of the expanse does not change the applicability of the noun to its referent. These two qualities are not possible of ''bounded'' nouns. Note that boundedness in nouns should not be thought of as synonymous with countability. Rather, boundedness is an underlying semantic distinction that motivates countability.

References

{{Reflist Grammar Verb types

Boundedness in verbs

Boundedness in nouns

See also

References