We experience events and situations from various points of view and these

points of view are often incorporated into our description of the events and situations.
We look back on events and situations we have experienced and look forward to events
and situations that may exist in the future. Something that is true seems to be always so,
others true just temporarily. We see some events just beginning and situations just
coming into existence and other events and situations ending. Some events are viewed
as finished at some particular time, others as still continuing, and the continuity may be
a matter of constant status or constant change. The expression of all these viewpoints is
called aspect. Aspect is both grammatical and lexical; it is expressed in predicates,
especially in verb inflections and collocations of verbs; cf. Its beginning to break, its
breaking, it broke, its broken. However, the expression of aspect may also appear in
certain temporal adverbs and in the choice of referring expressions. He is not here yet
and He is no longer here both communicate that he is not here but they incorporate
different viewpoints. Diane arrived tells of a single event; People arrived may relate
one event or a number of events.
Along with the viewpoint that we express, aspect also depends on the nature of
the predicate used, a lexical matter: differences of aspect are communicated in the
semantic features of different predicates; cf. She learned it vs. She knew it. She learned
it communicates the change from one status to another, from not-knowing to knowing,
presented as a simple event, though of course the process of learning may go on over a
period of time and consist of various parts. She knew it describes a situation or state
without commenting on its boundaries although knowing must have a beginning. Or
compare He threw the ball and He bounced the ball; the latter is likely to be a repetitive
action, the former may be a single event or may not. There is no good English name to
designate all the intrinsic temporal features of different predicates. The German word
Aktionsart kind of action is widely used in semantics. At any rate, we cannot divorce
the nature of predicates from a discussion of kinds of aspect and how they are expressed
in English. As we shall see, one predicate may have more than one way of contributing
to the aspect that is expressed.