aspect (linguistics)
Regarding linguistic aspect, there are a number of distinctions that are made
that I'm not sure are correct, and some examples that are ambiguous. For example,
the original author distinguishes between perfect/perfective, suggesting that
the latter refers to a completed action (but not specifying that this would be
the case in the former.) He also supplies an aspectually ambiguous sentence as
an example of perfective:
This sentence does not have any aspect encoded in it at all, as far as I can tell.
Completion is implied but not required; this an example of a simple past tense,
because the only encoded information is temporal.
As aspect is not my area of expertise, and many of the aspects listed here are,
shall we say, exotic, I do not believe that I am necessarily qualified to correct
the original author's assertions. However, when talking about aspect in English,
it is very important to distinguish it from tense (which I attempted to do.)
I would suggest that at least the Perfect/Perfective and Imperfect/Imperfective
distinctions be removed, or, if appropriate, clarified. English is by its nature
not a very good language to give examples of aspect in.
Alexander Poquet (atpoquet DONT SPAM csbd ME org)
- Comment: As you say, English is a rather difficult language to exemplify aspect with, however, a few comments of yours confuse me somewhat. "I went to the store." is indeed in the simple past, but you state "Completion is implied but not required"; I cannot think of a single example in the simple past where an action has not been completed. Therefore, this example, to me, is acceptable for its intended purpose, as it would appear that the simple past tense in English incorporates a perfective aspect. However, my guess is likely as good as yours in this situation, and I will second that call for someone with the necessary expertise to clarify this example.
- -Wytukaze
disputed
"Prominent in this category is Chinese, which differentiates a whole slew of aspects but relies exclusively on (optional) time-words to temporally pinpoint an action."
- quick elaboration?
"..the concepts 'ride' and 'mount' are shown by the same verb, rukubun, static in the former case and dynamic in the latter."
- Shouldn't these be switched?
Serbian: "I have eaten (a long time ago) Ja sam bio pojeo."
- To be consistent with the two-tense pairs in English and one-tense pairs in Serbian, shouldn't that be "I had eaten."?
- Serbian original is plusquamperfect. Nikola 12:17, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) Reading more about English tenses, I believe yes. Nikola 01:35, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"The typical contrasts of aspect in many languages can be distinguished in English only with the aid of phrases"
- This seems like the other languages don't. What are their examples? I reckon not; in sheer English, without the Latin or English bits, many aspects drop the aid:
- Habitual: 'I walk home from work.' (every day) -> "I walk.. home from work."
'I would/used to walk home from work.' (past habit) -> "I walked.. home from work."
- Perfect: 'I have/had gone to the cinema.'
- Imperfective: 'I'm going home.' (the action is in progress)
- Perfective: 'I went home.' (the action is finished)
- Progressive: 'I am eating.'
- Prospective: 'I am about to eat.' -> "I am be-eating."
- Inceptive: 'I am beginning to eat.' -> "I am eatening."
- Continuative: 'I am continuing to eat.' -> "I am eatishing."
- Terminative: 'I am finishing my meal.' -> "I am witheating."
- Inchoative: 'My nose is turning red.' (from the cold) -> "My nose reddens."/"My nose is reddened."
- Cessative: 'I am quitting smoking.' -> "I am offsmoking."
- Pausative: 'I stopped working for a while.' -> "I am forsmoking."
- Resumptive: 'I resumed sleeping.' -> "I am asleeping."
- Punctual: 'I slept.'
- Durative: 'I slept for an hour.'
- Delimitative: 'I slept for a while.'
- Protractive: 'The argument went on and on.' -> "The argument awenter."
- Iterative: 'I read the same books again and again.' -> "I reader the same books."
- Frequentative: 'Fireworks crackle.'
- Experiential: 'I have gone to school many times.' -> "I igone to school."
- Intentional: 'I listened carefully.' -> "I listen-ed."
- Accidental: 'I knocked over the chair.' -> "I was felled the chair."/"I felld the chair."
- Generic: 'Mangos grow on trees.'
- Intensive: 'It glared.' -> "It shinered."
- Moderative: 'It shined.'
- Attenuative: 'It glimmered.' -> "It shineled."
- I don't understand - are your changes correct English?? Nikola 12:17, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Most of the stuff after the arrows is very bad English. I'm confused as to why anyone would write them. Felix the Cassowary 09:23, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Languages which contrast intentional and accidental aspect are extremely rare; one such language is Bats, which distinguishes this aspectual difference for just six verbs. Compare so wodze I fell down (through no fault of my own, accidentally) and as wodze I fell down (through something I did, or on purpose)."
- Try "I was falled|fall-ed|fallen." or "I falld." and "I fall-ed." :D lysdexia 20:35, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- It's interesting that this is "extremely rare", as I believe Spanish has forms that can be described as conveying intentional/accidental aspect; for instance, when you drop something on accident, it's common to use a form based on a reflexive verb: "se me cayó", it fell on me/it fell (and I was there). Vorlon 11:08, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Who'd call that an aspect? Aspects deal with how an action takes place on the time scale (not when). Nothing to do with intention. J. 'mach' wust 18:17, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Serbian example
The difference between the perfective and imperfective aspects cannot be rendered by grammatical means in English. The difference between an imperfective verb in the past tense and a perfective verb in the past tense is definitely not the same as the difference between the past continuous and the past perfect tense. These are just different categories. Probably only a native speaker of a Slavic language who has no deep knowledge of English is likely to be under the illusion that imperfective is continuous. The comparison presented in the section "Serbian example" is in my opinion deeply confusing. The translation of "Ja sam jeo" should be "I ate" and the translation of "Ja sam pojeo" should be "I ate" as well. I am really sorry, but I am afraid the most part of the section should be deleted, as it spreads a misunderstanding (which is BTW quite common among native speakers of Slavic languages). Boraczek 10:40, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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