Peter Arkadiev

On the aspectual uses of the prefix be- in Lithuanian

The prefix be-, which appears in a variety of verbal forms and constructions in Lithuanian, has not been subject to a detailed and theoretically informed synchronic description. This paper attempts to fill this gap by providing an account of the two most clearly identifiable aspectual uses of be-: (i) its being part of the periphrastic forms expressing the avertive meaning recently established as a cross-linguistic gram; (ii) its use in the positive and negative continuative forms. I discuss the semantics and use of these constructions, and pay particular attention to their interactions with other aspectually relevant categories of Lithuanian.

Keywords: aspect, prefixation, avertive, continuative, scope