User:Bohlkeli/sandbox

Article evaluation: Perfect (grammar) Perfect (grammar)

Evaluating content:

There are some discrepancies in this article based on what we read in Carnie and Kroeger. While Carnie and Kroeger both consider the perfect an aspectual construction, the wikipedia article highlights that there is a debate within the field about whether to classify it as tense or aspect, because although is does give a time reference for a statement, it also adds more than that, which is how we differentiated between tense and aspect in class. So, reading the article, I found myself wondering what the recent consensus is on that debate. If the perfect is an aspectual construction, not tense, the discussion in the article about the discontinuous past seems irrelevant, because they would be in different categories. However, discontinuous past also kind of seems like an aspect, because it adds the criteria of having been completed. I was also a little bit confused by the organization. There is a section for "in particular languages," but the only discussion of construction is auxiliary constructions in a few particular languages. There should have been a little more intentionality with regard to how they organized their examples. For some of the particular languages, it doesn't even talk about the perfect construction (Indo-European, Ancient Greek, Latin). But, it does go into detail about the English construction and its implications and interactions with the progressive. One area which I think could be expanded upon is any semantic implications of perfect constructions. There is one sentence about it being for ongoing but now completed events, but I would have liked to see a little more elaboration perhaps with some examples in its own section, to denote the importance of why the perfect construction exists in the first place.

Evaluating tone:

The tone of this article seems neutral — it discusses the controversy surrounding whether perfect can be classified as an aspect or a tense, which suggests that the authors were aiming to incorporate a variety of perspectives. The only thing I noticed in terms of a biased tone is it is very English-centric. All of the examples within the text are in English. While the article does mention how the perfect differs from English in a small set of languages, it does not go into detail about how the perfect is constructed other than in English.

Evaluation sources:

There are 22 total citations, and one spot where it explicitly says there is a citation needed. The introductory paragraph, for example, does not have any citations, although it does have links to other wikipedia pages. A lot of the information, even that which does not have a citation, seems to come from the sources stated in the bibliography, but which facts are from which links are only clear in the couple of spots that they do include the citation. While the information seems correct and unbiased to me, just starting my education in syntax, it is not specified whether it is. Some of the links do not work, and some lead to pages without a clear website or author, suggesting they might not be from verified sources. Many of the sources seem reputable and generally clear of bias, but there aren't many sources from within the last 10 years. Out of the citations with dates on them, the most recent is from 2006, leaving me to wonder whether there haven't been more recent developments on, for example, the debate on whether perfect should be classified as tense or aspect.