Remarks on semelfactive verbs in English and Hungarian

It is known that English and Hungarian have semelfactive verbs, similar to Russian, but there is only an occasional mention of the exact types of these verbs in the literature and their role in the overall system of English and Hungarian aspect. This paper challenges an analysis of semelfactive verbs in English and Hungarian describing semantic and morphological characteristics associated with these verbs. The exact classification of semelfactive verbs in both languages is another goal of this study. In English, the term “semelfactive” for punctual events is adopted for general use by Smith (1991) and Verkuyl (1993), among other writers. It will be argued that punctual events are not all semelfactive in Smith’s (1991) sense.