Trąba K. (2017): Studies in Greek Linguistics. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Pp. 689-700. TESTING THE MODERN GREEK CATEGORY OF ASPECT: ADVERSATIVE SENTENCES 1 Kamil Trąba, Institute of Linguistics, Adam Mickiewicz University (prooffek@gmail.com) Abstract During the previous century, the category of aspect was subjected to intensive linguistic study. Due to the complexity of aspect, scientists proposed various methods for its analysis. The objective of this paper is to verify if the study of adversative sentences is a suitable method for analysing the aspectual system in Modern Greek. Adversative sentences originate from logical implication, which has previously been used in numerous aspectological studies (e.g., Bańczerowski 2015, Bogusławski 2003, Borik 2002, Galton 1984, Karolak 1995, Kenny 1963, Xydopoulos & Tsangalidis 2006, etc.). Moreover, another objective of this paper is to prove the validity and flexibility of adversative sentences and their easy adaptation for various aspectological analyses in the future. For instance, such sentences may be used to identify the terminative : complete, semelfactive : iterative and durative : momentary aspectual oppositions. 1. Introduction Modern Greek (MG) is a highly flectional language that has ‘grammaticalised’ the category of aspect. It differentiates the perfective, imperfective and perfect verbal forms in almost all tenses and moods. Scientists have attempted to identify, describe, and explain the different functions and uses of these verbal forms in MG by applying various approaches, theories, hypotheses, and methods. Nonetheless, it seems that all these techniques are strongly fixed and difficult to modify for new purposes. Consequently, this paper attempts to verify whether adversative sentences can be used to analyse the MG aspectual system. Furthermore, the flexibility of studying adversative sentences and the possibility of adapting this kind of study for different aspectological analyses is also considered. Before proceeding to the crux of the matter, in order to maintain consistency throughout the text, a few words must be dedicated to terminology. Following Bańczerowski (2015), the term aspect is understood in the paper by its narrow sense, meaning that it does not refer to the whole system (which hereinafter will be called aspectuality), but to the semantic notions of (in)completeness and (in)terminativity. Consequently, the adjective aspective (which refers to aspect) must be distinguished from aspectual (which refers to aspectuality). Furthermore, the terms perfective (pfv.) and imperfective (impfv.) always refer to the morphological form of the verb, regardless of whether they are written with a lower case or a capital letter. In MG, the former invokes the aorist-theme based verbal form, while the latter – the present-theme based verbal form. Additionally, the terms complete (compl.) and incomplete (incompl.) constitute values of completeness 2 , 1 For the purposes of the research, the term adversative sentence shell be understood as the sentence with the structure ‘p but not q’. 2 Following Bańczerowski’s (2015) terminology.