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Most aspectual verbs are
derived historicallyOne can either treat the notion of being
`derived' from something else as historical or as a process of derivational
morphology. Typically native and missionary grammarians have dealt with
aspectual verbs as if they were special or idiosyncratic usages of lexical
verbs, rather than being semantically and synchronically different. Arden, for
example, refers to them as intensifying the meaning of the lexical verb.
(Arden 1942:282-3) from some lexical verb that is still in use in Tamil but
has its own lexical meaning. The `meaning' of aspectual verbs is primarily
grammatical or syntactic and can usually only be related vestigially to the
lexical meaning of the verb from which it is derived.
Vasu Renganathan
Sat Nov 2 21:16:08 EST 1996