continuous (adj.)

A term used in the GRAMMATICAL description of VERB FORMS, referring to a CONTRAST of a temporal or a durative kind, and thus handled sometimes under the heading of TENSE and sometimes under ASPECT. The usual contrast recognized is between ‘continuous’ or PROGRESSIVE (e.g. I am going) and non-continuous, SIMPLE, or ‘non-progressive’ (e.g. I go). Linguists prefer an aspectual analysis here, because of the complex interaction of durational, completive and temporal features of meaning involved; TRADITIONAL grammars, however, merely refer to ‘continuous tense’, ‘continuous present’, etc., and thus imply a meaning which is to some degree an oversimplification.