This translation questionnaire consists of 71 items and is supposed to help researchers investigate the language-specific expression of three semantic categories which are central to the verb phrase: time reference (concerning the temporal location of a situation with respect to the time of speaking), viewpoint (concerning the linguistic construal of a situation as either complete or partial), and actionality (concerning the internal temporal structure of different types of situations). It aims at eliciting written whole-sentence translations from speakers with a high command of the subject language (ideally native speakers or language experts). Items consist of one target sentence to be translated and 2 – 3 additional sentences providing the context for the translation.
The questionnaire has been inspired by Dahl's (1985) seminal TMA questionnaire, and the basic elicitation method is the same. A crucial difference, however, is that the questionnaire at hand (including the corresponding rationale) is much more systematic and transparent in terms of the semantic distinctions targeted: for each of the three domains, a fixed number of values is distinguished (five for time reference, two for viewpoint, and eight for actionality), with each item explicitly targeting a specific combination of these values. This systematicity facilitates the analysis of the results, especially when comparing different languages. It also makes it easier for individual researchers to identify which items are relevant for their research interests, and which aren't, allowing them to use the questionnaire as a toolkit from which relevant items can be selected individually. Another difference concerns the number of items, with Dahl's questionnaire being significantly longer (71 vs. 156 items).
The questionnaire is currently available in two meta-languages, English and Spanish. More information on the questionnaire can be found in the attached rationale.
References
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. New York: Basil Blackwell.
Koss, Tom. 2025. The present perfective paradox. A typological study of present-time markers. Doctoral dissertation, University of Antwerp/Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics.