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| Grammatical features |
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Syntax relationships |
Inlinguistics,aspect is agrammatical category that expresses how averbal action, event, or state, extends over time. For instance,perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived asbounded and only once occurring, without reference to any flow of time during the event ("I helped him").Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or habitually as time flows ("I was helping him"; "I used to help people").
Further distinctions can be made, for example, to distinguishstates and ongoing actions (continuous and progressive aspects) from repetitive actions (habitual aspect).
Certain aspectual distinctions express a relation between the time of the event and the time of reference. This is the case with theperfect aspect, which indicates that an event occurred prior to but has continuing relevance at the time of reference: "I have eaten"; "I had eaten"; "I will have eaten".[1]
Different languages make different grammatical aspectual distinctions; some (such asStandard German; seebelow) do not make any. The marking of aspect is often conflated with the marking oftense andmood (seetense–aspect–mood). Aspectual distinctions may be restricted to certain tenses: inLatin and theRomance languages, for example, the perfective–imperfective distinction is marked in thepast tense, by the division betweenpreterites andimperfects. Explicit consideration of aspect as a category first arose out of study of theSlavic languages; here verbs often occur in pairs, with two related verbs being used respectively for imperfective and perfective meanings.
The concept of grammatical aspect (orverbal aspect) should not be confused withperfect andimperfectverb forms; the meanings of the latter terms are somewhat different, and in some languages, the common names used for verb forms may not follow the actual aspects precisely.
The Indian linguistYaska (circa 7th century BCE) dealt with grammatical aspect, distinguishing actions that are processes (bhāva), from those where the action is considered as a completed whole (mūrta). This is the key distinction between the imperfective and perfective. Yaska also applied this distinction to a verb versus an action nominal.[citation needed]
Grammarians of the Greek and Latin languages also showed an interest in aspect, but the idea did not enter into the modern Western grammatical tradition until the 19th century via the study of the grammar of theSlavic languages. The earliest use of the term recorded in theOxford English Dictionary dates from 1853.[2]
Aspect is often confused with the closely related concept oftense, because they both convey information about time. While tense relates the time ofreferent to some other time, commonly the speech event, aspect conveys other temporal information, such as duration, completion, or frequency, as it relates to the time of action. Thus tense refers totemporally when while aspect refers totemporally how. Aspect can be said to describe the texture of the time in which a situation occurs, such as a single point of time, a continuous range of time, a sequence of discrete points in time, etc., whereas tense indicates its location in time.
For example, consider the following sentences: "I eat", "I am eating", "I have eaten", and "I have been eating". All are in thepresent tense, indicated by the present-tense verb of each sentence (eat,am, andhave). Yet since they differ in aspect, each conveys different information or points of view as to how the action pertains to the present.
Grammatical aspect is aformal property of alanguage, distinguished through overtinflection,derivational affixes, or independent words that serve as grammatically requiredmarkers of those aspects. For example, theKʼicheʼ language spoken in Guatemala has the inflectional prefixesk- andx- to markincompletive andcompletive aspect;[3][4]Mandarin Chinese has the aspect markers -le了, -zhe着,zài-在, and -guò过 to mark theperfective,durativestative, durativeprogressive, andexperiential aspects,[5] and also marks aspect withadverbs;[6] and English marks thecontinuous aspect with the verbto be coupled withpresent participle and theperfect with the verbto have coupled withpast participle. Even languages that do not mark aspectmorphologically or throughauxiliary verbs, however, can convey such distinctions by the use of adverbs or othersyntactic constructions.[7]
Grammatical aspect is distinguished fromlexical aspect orAktionsart, which is an inherent feature of verbs or verb phrases and is determined by the nature of the situation that the verb describes.
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The most fundamental aspectual distinction, represented in many languages, is betweenperfective aspect andimperfective aspect. This is the basic aspectual distinction in the Slavic languages.
It semantically corresponds to the distinction between themorphological forms known respectively as theaorist and imperfect inGreek, the preterite and imperfect in Spanish, thesimple past (passé simple) and imperfect in French, and the perfect and imperfect in Latin (from the Latinperfectus, meaning "completed").
| Language | Perfective Aspect | Imperfective Aspect |
|---|---|---|
| Latin | Perfect | Imperfect |
| Spanish | Pretérito | |
| French | Passé simple | |
| Greek | Aorist | |
| Portuguese | Pretérito perfeito |
Essentially, the perfective aspect looks at an event as a complete action, while the imperfective aspect views an event as the process of unfolding or a repeated or habitual event (thus corresponding to the progressive/continuous aspect for events of short-term duration and to habitual aspect for longer terms).
For events of short durations in the past, the distinction often coincides with the distinction in the English language between the simple past "X-ed," as compared to the progressive "was X-ing". Compare "I wrote the letters this morning" (i.e. finished writing the letters: an action completed) and "I was writing the letters this morning" (the letters may still be unfinished).
In describing longer time periods, English needs context to maintain the distinction between the habitual ("I called him often in the past" – a habit that has no point of completion) and perfective ("I called him once" – an action completed), although the construct "used to" marks both habitual aspect and past tense and can be used if the aspectual distinction otherwise is not clear.
Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish,savoir andsaber. This is also true when the sense of verb "to know" is "to know somebody", in this case opposed in aspect to the verb "to meet" (or even to the construction "to get to know"). These correspond to imperfect and perfect forms ofconocer in Spanish, andconnaître in French. In German, on the other hand, the distinction is also lexical (as in English) through verbskennen andkennenlernen, although the semantic relation between both forms is much more straightforward sincekennen means "to know" andlernen means "to learn".
TheGermanic languages combine the concept of aspect with the concept oftense. Although English largely separates tense and aspect formally, its aspects (neutral, progressive, perfect, progressive perfect, and [in the past tense] habitual) do not correspond very closely to the distinction ofperfective vs. imperfective that is found in most languages with aspect. Furthermore, the separation of tense and aspect in English is not maintained rigidly. One instance of this is the alternation, in some forms of English, between sentences such as "Have you eaten?" and "Did you eat?".
In European languages, rather than locating an event time, the way tense does, aspect describes "the internal temporal constituency of a situation", or in other words, aspect is a way "of conceiving the flow of the process itself".[8] English aspectual distinctions in the past tense include "I went, I used to go, I was going, I had gone"; in the present tense "I lose, I am losing, I have lost, I have been losing, I am going to lose"; and with the future modal "I will see, I will be seeing, I will have seen, I am going to see". What distinguishes these aspects within each tense is not (necessarily) when the event occurs, but how the time in which it occurs is viewed: as complete, ongoing, consequential, planned, etc.
In most dialects of Ancient Greek, aspect is indicated uniquely by verbal morphology. For example, the very frequently usedaorist, though a functionalpreterite in the indicative mood, conveys historic or 'immediate' aspect in the subjunctive and optative. The perfect in all moods is used as an aspectual marker, conveying the sense of a resultant state. E.g.ὁράω – I see (present);εἶδον – I saw (aorist);οἶδα – I am in a state of having seen = I know (perfect). Turkish has a same/similar aspect, such as inGörmüş bulunuyorum/durumdayım, wheregörmüş means "having seen" andbulunuyorum/durumdayım means "I am in the state".[citation needed]
In many Sino-Tibetan languages, such asMandarin, verbs lack grammatical markers of tense, but are rich in aspect (Heine, Kuteva 2010,[full citation needed] p. 10). Markers of aspect are attached to verbs to indicate aspect. Event time is inferred through use of these aspectual markers, along with optional inclusion of adverbs.[9]
There is a distinction between grammatical aspect, as described here, andlexical aspect. Other terms for the contrastlexical vs. grammatical include:situation vs. viewpoint andinner vs. outer.[10][11] Lexical aspect, also known asAktionsart, is an inherent property of a verb or verb-complement phrase, and is not marked formally. The distinctions made as part of lexical aspect are different from those of grammatical aspect. Typical distinctions are between states ("I owned"), activities ("I shopped"), accomplishments ("I painted a picture"), achievements ("I bought"), and punctual, orsemelfactive, events ("I sneezed"). These distinctions are often relevant syntactically. For example, states and activities, but not usually achievements, can be used in English with a prepositionalfor-phrase describing a time duration: "I had a car for five hours", "I shopped for five hours", but not "*I bought a car for five hours". Lexical aspect is sometimes calledAktionsart, especially by German andSlavic linguists. Lexical or situation aspect is marked inAthabaskan languages.
One of the factors in situation aspect istelicity. Telicity might be considered a kind of lexical aspect, except that it is typically not a property of a verb in isolation, but rather a property of an entire verbphrase. Achievements, accomplishments andsemelfactives have telic situation aspect, while states and activities have atelic situation aspect.
The other factor in situation aspect is duration, which is also a property of a verb phrase. Accomplishments, states, and activities have duration, while achievements and semelfactives do not.
In some languages, aspect and time are very clearly separated, making them much more distinct to their speakers. There are a number of languages that mark aspect much more saliently than time. Prominent in this category are Chinese andAmerican Sign Language, which both differentiate many aspects but rely exclusively on optional time-indicating terms to pinpoint an action with respect to time. In other language groups, for example in most modernIndo-European languages (exceptSlavic languages and some Indo-Aryan languages likeHindi[12]), aspect has become almost entirely conflated, in the verbal morphological system, with time.
InRussian, aspect is more salient than tense in narrative. Russian, like other Slavic languages, uses different lexical entries for the different aspects, whereas other languages mark themmorphologically, and still others withauxiliaries (e.g., English).
InHindi, the aspect marker is overtly separated from the tense/mood marker.Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker and the second element (the copula) is the common tense/mood marker.
Inliterary Arabic (الْفُصْحَىal-fuṣḥā) the verb has two aspect-tenses: perfective (past), and imperfective (non-past). There is some disagreement among grammarians whether to view the distinction as a distinction in aspect, or tense, or both. The past verb (الْفِعْل الْمَاضِيal-fiʿl al-māḍī) denotes an event (حَدَثḥadaṯ) completed in the past, but it says nothing about the relation of this past event to present status. For example,وَصَلَwaṣala, "arrived", indicates that arrival occurred in the past without saying anything about the present status of the arriver – maybe they stuck around, maybe they turned around and left, etc. – nor about the aspect of the past event except insofar as completeness can be considered aspectual. This past verb is clearly similar if not identical to the Greek aorist, which is considered a tense but is more of an aspect marker. In the Arabic, aorist aspect is the logical consequence of past tense. By contrast, the "Verb of Similarity" (الْفِعْل الْمُضَارِعal-fiʿl al-muḍāriʿ), so called because of its resemblance to the active participial noun, is considered to denote an event in the present or future without committing to a specific aspectual sense beyond the incompleteness implied by the tense:يَضْرِبُ (yaḍribu, he strikes/is striking/will strike/etc.). Those are the only two "tenses" in Arabic (not countingأَمْرamr, command or imperative, which is traditionally considered as denoting future events.) To explicitly mark aspect, Arabic uses a variety of lexical and syntactic devices.
Contemporary Arabic dialects are another matter. One major change from al-fuṣḥā is the use of a prefix particle (بِbi in Egyptian and Levantine dialects—though it may have a slightly different range of functions in each dialect) to explicitly mark progressive, continuous, or habitual aspect:بيكتب,bi-yiktib, he is now writing, writes all the time, etc.
Aspect can mark the stage of an action. Theprospective aspect is a combination of tense and aspect that indicates the action is in preparation to take place. The inceptive aspect identifies the beginning stage of an action (e.g.Esperanto usesek-, e.g.Mi ekmanĝas, "I am beginning to eat".) and inchoative and ingressive aspects identify a change of state (The flowers started blooming) or the start of an action (He started running). Aspects of stage continue through progressive, pausative, resumptive, cessive, and terminative.
Important qualifications:
TheEnglish tense–aspect system has two morphologically distinct tenses,past andnon-past, the latter of which is also known as thepresent-future or, more commonly and less formally, simply thepresent. No marker of a distinct future tense exists on the verb in English; the futurity of an event may be expressed through the use of theauxiliary verbs "will" and "shall", by a non-past form plus anadverb, as in "tomorrow we go to New York City", or by some other means. Past is distinguished from non-past, in contrast, with internal modifications of the verb. These two tenses may be modified further forprogressive aspect (also calledcontinuous aspect), for theperfect, or for both. These two aspectual forms are also referred to as BE +ING[13] and HAVE +EN,[14] respectively, which avoids what may be unfamiliar terminology.
Aspects of the present tense:
(While many elementary discussions of English grammar classify the present perfect as a past tense, it relates the action to the present time. One cannot say of someone now deceased that they "have eaten" or "have been eating". The present auxiliary implies that they are in some waypresent (alive), even when the action denoted is completed (perfect) or partially completed (progressive perfect).)
Aspects of the past tense:
Aspects can also be marked onnon-finite forms of the verb: "(to) be eating" (infinitive with progressive aspect), "(to) have eaten" (infinitive with perfect aspect), "having eaten" (present participle orgerund with perfect aspect), etc. The perfect infinitive can further be governed bymodal verbs to express various meanings, mostly combining modality with past reference: "I should have eaten" etc. In particular, the modalswill andshall and their subjunctive formswould andshould are used to combine future or hypothetical reference with aspectual meaning:
The uses of the progressive and perfect aspects are quite complex. They may refer to the viewpoint of the speaker:
But they can have otherillocutionary forces or additional modal components:
English expresses some other aspectual distinctions with other constructions.Used to + VERB is a pasthabitual, as in "I used to go to school," andgoing to / gonna + VERB is aprospective, a future situation highlighting current intention or expectation, as in "I'm going to go to school next year."
The aspectual systems of certain dialects of English, such asAfrican-American Vernacular English (see for examplehabitual be), and ofcreoles based on English vocabulary, such asHawaiian Creole English, are quite different from those of standard English, and often reflect a more elaborate paradigm of aspectual distinctions (often at the expense of tense).[15] The following table, appearing originally in Green (2002)[16] shows the possible aspectual distinctions in AAVE in their prototypical, negative andstressed/emphatic affirmative forms:
| Aspect/Tense | Prototypical | Stressed / Emphatic Affirmative | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Habitual | 'be eating' (seeHabitual be) | 'DO be eating' | 'don('t) be eating' |
| Remote Past | 'BEEN eating' (see[17]) | 'HAVE BEEN eating' | 'ain('t)/haven't BEEN eating' |
| Remote PastCompletive | 'BEEN ate' | 'HAD BEEN ate' | 'ain('t)/haven't BEEN ate' |
| Remote Past Perfect | 'had BEEN ate' | 'HAD BEEN ate' | 'hadn't BEEN ate' |
| Resultant State | 'done ate' | 'HAVE done ate' | 'ain('t) done ate' |
| Past Perfect Resultant State | 'had done ate' | 'HAD done ate' | 'hadn't done ate' |
| Modal Resultant State | 'should'a done ate' | -- | -- |
| Remote Past Resultant State | 'BEEN done ate' | 'HAVE BEEN done ate' | 'ain('t)/haven't BEEN done ate' |
| Remote Past Perfect Resultant State | 'had BEEN done ate' | -- | -- |
| Future Resultant State/Conditional | ' 'a be done ate' | 'WILL be done ate' | 'won't be done ate' |
| Modal Resultant State | 'might/may be done ate' | 'MIGHT/MAY be done ate' | 'might/may not be done ate' |
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AlthoughStandard German does not have aspects, manyUpper German and allWest Central German dialects,[citation needed] and some more vernacular forms of German do make an aspectual distinction which partly corresponds with the Englishcontinuous form: alongside the standard present tenseIch esse ('I eat') and pastIch aß ('I ate') there is the formIch bin/war am essen/Essen ('I am/was at the eating'; capitalization varies). This is formed by the conjugated auxiliary verbsein ("to be") followed by the preposition and articleam (=an dem) and the infinitive, which German uses in many constructions as a verbal noun.
In the Tyrolean and other Bavarian regiolect the prefix *da can be found, which form perfective aspects. "I hu's gleant" (Ich habe es gelernt = I learnt it) vs. "I hu's daleant" (*Ich habe es DAlernt = I succeeded in learning).[citation needed]
InDutch (aWest Germanic language), two types ofcontinuous form are used. Both types are considered Standard Dutch.
The first type is very similar to the non-standard German type. It is formed by the conjugated auxiliary verbzijn ("to be"), followed byaan het and thegerund (which in Dutch matches the infinitive). For example:
The second type is formed by one of the conjugated auxiliary verbsliggen ("to lie"),zitten ("to sit"),hangen ("to hang"),staan ("to stand") orlopen ("to walk"), followed by the prepositionte and the infinitive. The conjugated verbs indicate the stance of the subject performing or undergoing the action.
Sometimes the meaning of the auxiliary verb is diminished to 'being engaged in'. Take for instance these examples:
In these cases, there is generally an undertone of irritation.
TheSlavic languages make a clear distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects; it was in relation to these languages that the modern concept of aspect originally developed.
In Slavic languages, a given verb is, in itself, either perfective or imperfective. Consequently, each language contains many pairs of verbs, corresponding to each other in meaning, except that one expresses perfective aspect and the other imperfective. (This may be considered a form oflexical aspect.) Perfective verbs are commonly formed from imperfective ones by the addition of a prefix, or else the imperfective verb is formed from the perfective one by modification of the stem or ending.Suppletion also plays a small role. Perfective verbs cannot generally be used with the meaning of a present tense – their present-tense forms in fact have future reference. An example of such a pair of verbs, fromPolish, is given below:
In at least the East Slavic and West Slavic languages, there is a three-way aspect differentiation for verbs of motion with the determinate imperfective, indeterminate imperfective, and perfective. The two forms of imperfective can be used in all three tenses (past, present, and future), but the perfective can only be used with past and future. The indeterminate imperfective expresseshabitual aspect (or motion in no single direction), while the determinate imperfective expressesprogressive aspect. The difference corresponds closely to that between the English "I (regularly) go to school" and "I am going to school (now)". The three-way difference is given below for theRussian basic (unprefixed) verbs of motion.
Whenprefixes are attached to Russian verbs of motion they become more or less normal imperfective/perfective pairs, with the indeterminate imperfective becoming the prefixed imperfective and the determinate imperfective becoming the prefixed perfective. For example, prefixпри-pri- + indeterminateходи́тьkhodít' =приходи́тьprikhodít' (to arrive (on foot), impf.); and prefixпри-pri- + determinateидти́idtí =прийтиprijtí (to arrive (on foot), pf.).
| Russian verbs of motion | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Imperfective | Perfective | Translation | |
| Indeterminate | Determinate | ||
| ходи́ть khodít' | идти́ idtí | пойти́ pojtí | to go by foot (walk) |
| е́здить jézdit' | е́хать jékhat' | пое́хать pojékhat' | to go by transport (drive, train, bus, etc.) |
| бе́гать bégat' | бежа́ть bezhát' | побежа́ть pobezhát' | to run |
| броди́ть brodít' | брести́ brestí | побрести́ pobrestí | to stroll, to wander |
| гоня́ть gonját' | гнать gnat' | погна́ть pognát' | to chase, to drive (cattle, etc.) |
| ла́зить lázit' | лезть lezt' | поле́зть polézt' | to climb |
| лета́ть letát' | лете́ть letét' | полете́ть poletét' | to fly |
| пла́вать plávat' | плыть plyt' | поплы́ть poplýt' | to swim, to sail |
| по́лзать pólzat' | ползти́ polztí | поползти́ popolztí | to crawl |
| вози́ть vozít' | везти́ veztí | повезти́ poveztí | to carry (by vehicle) |
| носи́ть nosít' | нести́ nestí | понести́ ponestí | to carry, to wear |
| води́ть vodít' | вести́ vestí | повести́ povestí | to lead, to accompany, to drive (a car) |
| таска́ть taskát' | тащи́ть tashchít' | потащи́ть potashchít' | to drag, to pull |
| ката́ть katát' | кати́ть katít' | покати́ть pokatít' | to roll |
Modern Romance languages merge the concepts of aspect and tense but consistently distinguish perfective and imperfective aspects in the past tense. This derives directly from the way theLatin language used to render both aspects andconsecutio temporum.
Italian language example using the verbmangiare ("to eat"):
| Mood:indicativo (indicative) | |||
| Tense | Italian | English | Explanation |
| Presente (Present) | io mangio | "I eat", "I'm eating" | merges habitual and continuous aspects, among others |
| Passato prossimo (Recent past) | io ho mangiato | "I ate", "I have eaten" | merges perfective and perfect |
| Imperfetto (Imperfect) | io mangiavo | "I was eating", "I usually ate" | merges habitual and progressive aspects |
| Trapassato prossimo (Recent pluperfect) | io avevo mangiato | "I had eaten" | tense, not ordinarily marked for aspect |
| Passato remoto (Far past) | io mangiai | "I ate" | perfective aspect |
| Trapassato remoto (Far pluperfect) | io ebbi mangiato | "I had eaten" | tense |
| Futuro semplice (Simple future) | io mangerò | "I shall eat" | tense |
| Futuro anteriore (Future perfect) | io avrò mangiato | "I shall have eaten" | future tense and perfect tense/aspect |
Theimperfetto/trapassato prossimo contrasts with thepassato remoto/trapassato remoto in thatimperfetto renders an imperfective (continuous) past whilepassato remoto expresses an aorist (punctual/historical) past.
Other aspects in Italian are rendered with other periphrases, likeprospective (io sto per mangiare "I'm about to eat",io starò per mangiare "I shall be about to eat"), orcontinuous/progressive (io sto mangiando "I'm eating",io starò mangiando "I shall be eating").
Hindi has three aspects,habitual aspect,perfective aspect and theprogressive aspect. Each of these three aspects are formed from their participles. The aspects of Hindi when conjugated into their personal forms can be put into five grammatical moods:indicative,presumptive,subjunctive,contrafactual, andimperative. In Hindi, the aspect marker is overtly separated from the tense/mood marker.Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker. The second element (the copula) is the common tense/mood marker.[12]
There are a couple of verbs which can be used as the copula to the aspectual participles: होना (honā) [to be, happen], रहना (rêhnā) [to stay, remain], आना (ānā) [to come], and जाना (jānā) [to go]. Each of these copulas provide a unique nuance to the aspect. The default (unmarked) copula is होना (honā) [to be]. These copulas can themselves be conjugated into an aspectual participle and used with another copula, hence forming subaspects. (SeeːHindi verbs)[12][18]
| Simple Aspect | Perfective Aspect | Habitual Aspect | Progressive Aspect | Translation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| होना honā | हुआ होना huā honā | हुआ रहना huā rêhnā | हुआ जाना huā jānā | होता होना hotā honā | होता रहना hotā rêhnā | होता आना hotā ānā | होता जाना hotā jānā | हो रहा होना ho rahā honā | हो रहा रहना ho rahā rêhnā | to happen |
| करना karnā | किया होना kiyā honā | किया रहना kiyā rêhnā | किया जाना kiyā jānā | करता होना kartā honā | करता रहना kartā rêhnā | करता आना kartā ānā | करता जाना kartā jānā | कर रहा होना kar rahā honā | कर रहा रहना kar rahā rêhnā | to do |
| मरना marnā | मरा होना marā honā | मरा रहना marā rêhnā | मरा जाना marā jānā | मरता होना martā honā | मरता रहना martā rêhnā | मरता आना martā ānā | मरता जाना martā jānā | मर रहा होना mar rahā honā | मर रहा रहना mar rahā rêhnā | to die |
Finnish andEstonian, among others, have a grammatical aspect contrast oftelicity between telic and atelic. Telic sentences signal that the intended goal of an action is achieved. Atelic sentences do not signal whether any such goal has been achieved. The aspect is indicated by thecase of the object:accusative is telic andpartitive is atelic. For example, the (implicit) purpose of shooting is to kill, such that:
In rare cases corresponding telic and atelic forms can be unrelated by meaning.
Derivational suffixes exist for various aspects. Examples:
There are derivational suffixes for verbs, which carryfrequentative,momentane,causative, andinchoative aspect meanings. Also, pairs of verbs differing only intransitivity exist.
TheRapa language (Reo Rapa) is a mixed language that grew out ofTahitian and Old Rapa among monolingual inhabitants ofRapa Iti. Old Rapa words are still used for grammar and sentence structure, but most common words were replaced byTahitian words.[19] Rapa is similar toEnglish as they both have specific tense words such asdid ordo.
i
haere
go
i
te
fare
house
ki’ere vau i haere i te fare
NEG.PST 1.SG PFV go PREP ART house
'I did not go to a house.'
puta
book
kāre tā-koe puta
NEG.NPST ART-2SG book
'You don't have your book.' (Lit. 'Your book doesn't exist')
TheHawaiian language conveys aspect as follows:[21][22][23]
Wuvulu language is a minority language in Pacific. The Wuvulu verbal aspect is hard to organize because of its number of morpheme combinations and the interaction of semantics between morphemes.[24] Perfective, imperfective negation, simultaneous and habitual are four aspects markers in Wuvulu language.
maʔua
but
ʔi=na-li-ware-fa-rawani
ʔaʔa
with
roʔou,
them
Barafi
Barafi
maʔua ʔi=na-li-ware-fa-rawani ʔaʔa roʔou, Barafi
but 3SG=REAL-PERF-talk-CAUS-good with them Barafi
'But, Barafi had already clearly told them.'
ʔi=na-panaro-puluʔi-na
ruapalo
two
ʔei
the.PL
pani
hand
Puleafo
Puleafo
ma
and
ʔi=na-panaro-puluʔi-na ruapalo ʔei pani Puleafo ma ʔi=fi-unu
3SG=REAL-hold-together-TR two the.PL hand Puleafo and 3SG=SIM-drink
'He held together the two hands of Puleafo while drinking.' (Note: markerta- is only for singular subject. When the subject is dual or plural, the markerʔei andi- are used in same situation.)[25]
ʔi=na-fane-naranara
fei
the
nara
thought
Faninilo
Faninilo
ba,
ʔaleʔena
like
ba
ini
who
liai
again
mei
the
ramaʔa
person
mei
the
ʔi=na-fane-naranara fei nara Faninilo ba, ʔaleʔena ba ini liai mei ramaʔa mei
3SG=REAL-HAB-think(REDUP) the thought Faninilo COMP like COMP who again the person the
'And the thought kept occurring to Faninilo, "who is this particular person?"'[26]
There are three types of aspects one must consider when analyzing the Tokelauan language: inherent aspect, situation aspect, and viewpoint aspect.[20]
The inherent aspect describes the purpose of a verb and what separates verbs from one another. According to Vendler, inherent aspect can be categorized into four different types: activities, achievements, accomplishments, and states. Simple activities include verbs such as pull, jump, and punch. Some achievements are continue and win. Drive-a-car is an accomplishment while hate is an example of a state. Another way to recognize a state inherent aspect is to note whether or not it changes. For example, if someone were to hate vegetables because they are allergic, this state of hate is unchanging and thus, a state inherent aspect. On the other hand, an achievement, unlike a state, only lasts for a short amount of time. Achievement is the highpoint of an action.[20]
Another type of aspect is situation aspect. Situation aspect is described to be what one is experiencing in his or her life through that circumstance. Therefore, it is his or her understanding of the situation. Situation aspect are abstract terms that are not physically tangible. They are also used based upon one's point of view. For example, a professor may say that a student who comes a minute before each class starts is a punctual student. Based upon the professor's judgment of what punctuality is, he or she may make that assumption of the situation with the student. Situation aspect is firstly divided into states and occurrences, then later subdivided under occurrences into processes and events, and lastly, under events, there are accomplishments and achievements.[20]
The third type of aspect is viewpoint aspect. Viewpoint aspect can be likened to situation aspect such that they both take into consideration one's inferences. However, viewpoint aspect diverges from situation aspect because it is where one decides to view or see such event. A perfect example is the glass metaphor:Is the glass half full or is it half empty. The choice of being half full represents an optimistic viewpoint while the choice of being half empty represents a pessimistic viewpoint. Not only does viewpoint aspect separate into negative and positive, but rather different point of views. Having two people describe a painting can bring about two different viewpoints. One may describe a situation aspect as a perfect or imperfect. A perfect situation aspect entails an event with no reference to time, while an imperfect situation aspect makes a reference to time with the observation.[20]
Aspect in Torau is marked with post-verbal particles or clitics. While the system for marking the imperfective aspect is complex and highly developed, it is unclear if Torau marks the perfective and neutral viewpoints. The imperfective clitics index one of the core arguments, usually the nominative subject, and follow the rightmost element in a syntactic structure larger than the word. The two distinct forms for marking the imperfective aspect are(i)sa- ande-. While more work needs to be done on this language, the preliminary hypothesis is that(i)sa- encodes the stative imperfective ande- encodes the active imperfective. Reduplication always cooccurs withe-, but it usually does not with(i)sa-. This example below shows these two imperfective aspect markers giving different meanings to similar sentences.
Pita
Peter
Pita ma-to mate=sa-la.
Peter REAL.3SG.SUBJ-PST be.dead=IPFV-3SG
'Peter was dead.'
Pita
Peter
maa≈mate=e-la.
Pita ma-tomaa≈mate=e-la.
Peter REAL.3SG.SUBJ-PST {REDUP}≈be.dead=IPFV-3SG
'Peter was dying.'
In Torau, the suffix -to, which must attach to a preverbal particle, may indicate similar meaning to the perfective aspect. In realis clauses, this suffix conveys an event that is entirely in the past and no longer occurring. When-to is used in irrealis clauses, the speaker conveys that the event will definitely occur (Palmer, 2007). Although this suffix is not explicitly stated as a perfective viewpoint marker, the meaning that it contributes is very similar to the perfective viewpoint.[27]
Like manyAustronesian languages, the verbs of theMalay language follow a system of affixes to express changes in meaning. To express the aspects, Malay uses a number ofauxiliary verbs:
Like manyAustronesian languages, the verbs of thePhilippine languages follow a complex system of affixes to express subtle changes in meaning. However, the verbs in this family of languages are conjugated to express the aspects and not the tenses. Though many of thePhilippine languages do not have a fully codified grammar, most of them follow the verb aspects that are demonstrated byFilipino orTagalog.
Creole languages[28] typically use the unmarked verb for timeless habitual aspect, or for stative aspect, or for perfective aspect in the past. Invariant pre-verbal markers are often used. Non-stative verbs typically can optionally be marked for the progressive, habitual, completive, or irrealis aspect. The progressive in English-basedAtlantic Creoles often usesde (from English "be").Jamaican Creole usesa (from English "are") orde for the present progressive and a combination of the past time marker (did,behn,ehn orwehn) and the progressive marker (a orde) for the past progressive (e.g.did a orwehn de).Haitian Creole uses the progressive markerap. Some Atlantic Creoles use one marker for both the habitual and progressive aspects. InTok Pisin, the optional progressive marker follows the verb. Completive markers tend to come from superstrate words like "done" or "finish", and some creoles model the future/irrealis marker on the superstrate word for "go".
American Sign Language (ASL) is similar to many other sign languages in that it has no grammatical tense but many verbal aspects produced by modifying the base verb sign.
An example is illustrated with the verbTELL. The basic form of this sign is produced with the initial posture of the index finger on the chin, followed by a movement of the hand and finger tip toward the indirect object (the recipient of the telling). Inflected into the unrealized inceptive aspect ("to be just about to tell"), the sign begins with the hand moving from in front of the trunk in an arc to the initial posture of the base sign (i.e., index finger touching the chin) while inhaling through the mouth, dropping the jaw, and directing eye gaze toward the verb's object. The posture is then held rather than moved toward the indirect object. During the hold, the signer also stops the breath by closing the glottis. Other verbs (such as "look at", "wash the dishes", "yell", "flirt") are inflected into the unrealized inceptive aspect similarly: The hands used in the base sign move in an arc from in front of the trunk to the initial posture of the underlying verb sign while inhaling, dropping the jaw, and directing eye gaze toward the verb's object (if any), but subsequent movements and postures are dropped as the posture and breath are held.[citation needed]
Other aspects in ASL include the following: stative, inchoative ("to begin to..."), predispositional ("to tend to..."), susceptative ("to... easily"), frequentative ("to... often"), protractive ("to... continuously"), incessant ("to... incessantly"), durative ("to... for a long time"), iterative ("to... over and over again"), intensive ("to... very much"), resultative ("to... completely"), approximative ("to... somewhat"), semblitive ("to appear to..."), increasing ("to... more and more"). Some aspects combine with others to create yet finer distinctions.
Aspect is unusual in ASL in that transitive verbs derived for aspect lose their grammatical transitivity. They remain semantically transitive, typically assuming an object made prominent using a topic marker or mentioned in a previous sentence. SeeSyntax in ASL for details.
The following aspectual terms are found in the literature. Approximate English equivalents are given.
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