了 as "perfect" aspect vs 了 as "actual" aspect theory Couple of times in my research on Verb+了aspect, I've stumbled across really interesting nonstandard ideas about what this particle really means. Only one theory strikes some notes in my mind. Namely it is a theory that 了 is not a perfect aspect marker (there is a GROUP of perfect aspects one of them is 了)  but rather an &quot;actuality&quot; (&quot;reality or existential&quot;) aspect marker.
Can anyone suggest some reading about 了 from &quot;actual\existential\realization&quot; stand point of view? Thanks.
Please, don't talk about &quot;sentence final 了&quot;. This problem is solved for me. I'm intereted only in verb+了.

Ok. I think I need to elaborate on the difference between &quot;perfect&quot; and &quot;actual&quot;.
You can negate perfect aspect of a verb in question. But you can't nagate a verb once you make it &quot;actual&quot; by adding 了 to it.

For example:

我吃了饭了, 但是没吃了完. - &quot;I have eaten, but haven't eaten.&quot;

It  is absurd. You can't just negate something you just made &quot;real&quot;!! (by stressing it's actuality, the thing took place in reality)
But you can nagate perfect aspect (完) of the verb.

我吃了饭了, 但是没吃完 - &quot;I've eaten, but didn't finish!&quot;.

This is ok, sicne in the second case we negate the 完 part (perfect aspect) and not the 吃了 part (actuality aspect, the stressing that &quot;eating&quot; really took place).
P.S. I have forgotten one more name for the 了 - 'actuallity aspect&quot;. 了 is used whenever the &quot;thing&quot; actually was or 100% will take place.
P.S.S.
Some papers I've gathered in my research:

&quot;Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus-based Study&quot; by Richard Xiao,Tony  McEnery (chapter 4.1.4)
&quot;The Influence of Worldview on Second Language Acquisition: A Study of Native English Speakers Acquiringthe Chinese Aspect Marker -Le.&quot; by Yang Li-qiong
&quot;Corpus-Based Contrastive Studies of English and Chinese&quot; by  Tony McEnery,Richard Xiao (page 11-12 and so on)
&quot;Lecture 17: Existential Sentences in Chinese: Syntax and Semantics&quot; by Barbara H. Partee
Answering your new edited question.  Your first reference, "Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus-based Study" by Richard Xiao,Tony McEnery, indeed gives a novel fine-grained analysis of perfective particles in Mandarin.  But it is their own theory and so far as i can see more people cite it than expand on it. A list of 186 works citing it is given at https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&amp;hl=en&amp;cites=14017749010703840750&amp;as_sdt=5

The issue here is grammaticalization.  If we want to say 了 has a purely grammatical role in the sentence 我吃了 then we obviously cannot just say that role is as a perfect aspect marker.  The word clearly does more than indicate perfect aspect.  So we must define some much more specific subdivision of perfect aspect like "actuality aspect."  But other grammarians prefer not to subdivide aspect that way, and rather say 了 has a lexical or pragmatic role in addition to its grammar.  There is a vast literature on this, and references in Michaelyus answer are one good way into it.