aspect (n.) (asp)

A category used in the GRAMMATICAL description of verbs (along with TENSE and MOOD), referring primarily to the way the grammar marks the duration or type of temporal activity denoted by the verb. A well-studied aspectual CONTRAST, between PERFECTIVE and IMPERFECTIVE, is found in many Slavic languages: in Russian, for example, there is a perfective/imperfective contrast – the former often referring to the completion of an action, the latter expressing duration without specifying completion (cf. the perfective form on  , ‘he read (something)’, and the imperfective form on , ‘he used to read/was reading (something)’. The English verb PHRASE makes a formal distinction which is usually analyzed as aspectual: the contrast between PROGRESSIVE (or ‘continuous’) and ‘non-progressive’ (or SIMPLE) duration of action. The contrast between I was living and I have been living, and other uses of the have auxiliary, are also often analyzed in aspectual terms, but this analysis is more controversial. Other English constructions have sometimes been analyzed in terms of aspect, e.g. involving HABITUAL contrasts (as in used to); and in other languages further aspectual distinctions may be found, e.g. ‘iterative’ or ‘frequentative’ (referring to a regularly occurring action), ‘inchoative’ or ‘inceptive’ (referring to the beginning of an action). Aspectual be refers to the use of the verb to be in some VARIETIES (such as African-American English) to express the recurrence of an eventuality, as in They be reading too fast. Aspectual oppositions are sometimes viewed generally as SEMANTIC distinctions, but sometimes the notion is restricted to those oppositions which have achieved a grammaticalized status in a language. In this respect, a contrast is often drawn between aspect and Aktionsart (German, plural Aktionsarten, ‘kinds of action’), aspect referring to instances where the opposition has been grammaticalized, Aktionsart to instances where it has been lexicalized (especially, in Slavonic linguistics, to instances where the contrast is expressed using the language’s DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY). An influential classification derives from US philosopher Zeno Vendler (1921–2004), who distinguished PROCESS and STATE event types, dividing the former into ACCOMPLISHMENT, ACHIEVEMENT, and ACTIVITY types.