Abstract

The article explores the role played by a zero actant in forming a particular aspectual value, Durative (Imperfective) or Terminative (Perfective) (v. Verkuyl 1993), especially for the deictic movement verbs (Fillmore 1966, 1972), verbs that in French are aller “to go” and venir “to come”. The verbs belonging to various aspectual categories have an ‘aspectual actant’ (syntactic subject, direct or indirect object, some spatial or temporal adverbials, etcetera) which plays a decisive role in the construction of a particular aspectual value. For the verbs expressing the spatial moving of an Agent along a Path, the aspectual actant is the starting point of the route (for verbs such as sortir “to come out”, partir “to leave”, s’éloigner “to move away”, and so on) or the endpoint of the way (for verbs like arriver “to arrive”, se render “to walk to”, atteindre “to reach”, and so on).

The deictic verbs express the fact that the Agent leaves the speaker’s current whereabouts (for aller “to go”) or he gets close to the speaker’s location (for venir “to come”). From an aspectual point of view, the deictic verbs behave differently from the other movement VP because they virtually express regularly the Terminative aspect, regardless of the presence or absence of the aspectual actant. dis characteristic can be accounted for by the implicit meaning of these verbs, which involve a deictic space, i.e. a space determined by the given enunciation situation, the ending space (for to go), or the initial point of the Path (for to come) done by the Agent.

Key words: aller, venir, aspectual actant, aspectual viewpoints (Durative or Terminative), Path