The category of ASPECT
Tense-Aspect
Tense: a grammaticalized form of time expressed by inflectional
morphemes
Tense is a deictic category: it locates the time of the situation
described in the sentence relative to the moment of speaking
We perceive the past and the future with respect to the present
(situation time- moment of speaking)
Aspect, is a non-deictic category, it informs us about how an event
is viewed by the speaker at a given moment in time
aspect describes "the internal temporal constituency of a
situation”
Aspect: I. Verbal Aspect (Grammatical aspect, viewpoint aspect), II.
Lexical aspect (Situation Types)
Grammatical Aspect
‘aspect ’ imported into the Western grammatical tradition from Slavic grammar from the
loan word ‘vid’, meaning ‘view’, ‘vision’
In traditional grammars, the notion ‘ Viewpoint Aspect’ is restricted mostly to the
perfective -imperfective distinction
in English, this opposition is expressed by syntactic means
(be+V-ing vs. simple form)
1) He was working (he was at/on working) (imperfective)
vs.
2) He worked (perfective)
The perfective-imp. opposition: expressed by inflectional morphemes on the verb or by
functional morphemes within a verbal complex
Comrie: " different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation”
(1976.3-4)
The perfective-imperfective opposition
• The perfective provides a holistic, summarizing or unifying
view upon the situation described in the sentence
• Perfective aspect looks at the situation from outside, without
distinguishing any internal phase of the situation (Comrie)
• By contrast, the imperfective is concerned with the temporal
constituency of a situation, presented as divided into internal
phases, there being no concern for the whole situation.
• English aspectual distinctions in the past tense include "I went
(perfective), I used to go (imperfective), I was going, (imp) I
had gone“(perf.)
The perfective-imperfective opposition
The very same event may be described as perfective in one
clause, and then imperfective in the next. For example,
3) "John read that book yesterday; while he was reading it,
the postman came,“
(first clause: perfective (John’s reading is a complete event;
second clause: imperfective(this event is opened up, so that the
speaker is now in the middle of the situation of John's reading)
(In Romanian: syncratic means (tense is not distinguished from
aspect, in Hungarian: by means of affixes (e.g. ette-megette)
Lexical aspect (Situation types)
Aristotle’s distinction between energeia (active occurrences) and kinesis (with
an external end)
Refers to the classification of verbal expressions into states, activities,
accomplishments, achievements, semelfactives (Vendlerian classes)
States are stative and durative, with no inherent endpoint (atelic)
love/like someone, know the answer, enjoy life, live in London
Activities are dynamic, durative and atelic:
drink beer / laugh/ dance/run/read
Accomplishments are dynamic, durative and telic
Drink a beer/build a house/write an essay/recite a poem
Achievements are dynamic, telic, instantaneous
Win the race/notice someone/lose something/reach the top/arrive/leave
Semelfactives are dynamic, atelic, instantaneous
Hiccup, kick the ball, sneeze, cough, hit, tap
Tests to identify situation types
For/in adverbials:
• Activities appear with for adverbials, accomplishments and
achievements with in adverbials:
a. He drove for half an hour.
b. He drove to the supermarket in 5 minutes.
Difference in entailment between for and in adverbials:
for half an hour (means during that half an hour)
In an hour (after that hour)
Only activities, accomplishments and semelfactives appear in the
progressive
c. He was writing. /He was writing a letter. /He was coughing.
d. He was being stupid./ *He was loving her/ *He was understanding
her./He was finding a coin.
Tests to identify situation types
Only activities, accomplishments and semelfactives occur as imperatives:
a. Write it down! Swim! Build a kite!
b. *Be tall! *Know the answer! *Find some money!
Achievements do not occur with attentively, carefully:
c. He swam carefully. He built a kite attentively.
d. *He was attentively tall/ *knew the answer/*noticed me.
Only activities and accomplishments appear as complements of force and
persuade:
e. He forced him to swim/build a kite/*to know the answer/*recognize his mother
Only non-statives (activites and accomplishments) appear in pseudo-cleft
constructions with the auxiliary do:
f. What John did was swim/ built a kite/write a letter.
g. *What John did was know the answer
Tests to identify situation types
Complement of stop:
Achievements cannot appear as complements of ‘stop’ (except in
habitual interpretation
h) John stopped swimming/building a kite/*recognizing his mother/?
being sick after taking medication
Complements of finish:
Only accomplishments appear as complements of ‘finish’:
i) *John finished driving/*being ill/*reaching the top/building a kite.
Ambiguity with ‘almost’:
Different interpretation with activities and accomplishments:
j) John almost built a kite/almost swam.
Situation types
Categorize the verb phrases below according to their situation
types:
write, read, notice someone, knock on the door, cough, find
a wallet, swim, ask a question, lose the game, watch a movie
What about:
write a letter, write letters, read a letter, read letters, ask
questions, lose games, watch movies?
Situation types. Recategorization
The Subject or the Direct object often leads to recategorization
Activities become accomplishments:
Write-write a letter, sing-sing a song, walk-walk to school, smoke-smoke a
cigarette, read-read the book, eat-eat an apple
Accomplishments can also be recategorized into activities:
Write an email-write emails, walk to school-walk, read a poem-read, type a letter-
type, type letters, eat an apple-eat apples
Achievements can also be recategorized into an activity (if the subject of the
phrase (5) or the direct object is an indefinite plural (7))
4)The tourists have discovered a beautiful castle. (achievement)
5)Tourists discovered that beautiful castle for years. (activity)
6) He discovered a treasure in the backyard. (achievement) vs.
7)Tom has been discovering lice in his son's hair for three days. (activity)
Recategorization
Adverbials:
If an activity is combined with an adverbial of extent, it turns into an
accomplishment.
8) Tom walked for an hour. (activity) vs.
9) Tom walked two kilometers in half an hour.(accomplishment)
If an activity combines with a locative noun phrase, it becomes an accomplishment.
10) Tom walked in the woods for an hour. (activity)
11) Tom walked to the building in ten minutes. (accomplishment)
The progressive: leads to activities
The progressive turns all event types into an activity
12) He is stupid vs. He is being stupid.
13) He walked to school. vs. He was walking to school.
14) The plane landed. vs. The plane was landing.
15) Someone knocked at the door. vs. Someone was knocking at the door.
Bibliography
1. Budai László (1999) English Grammar – Theory and Practice; Nemzeti
Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest
2. Budai László (2009) BA students’ English grammar: theory and practice; Osiris,
Budapest
3. Leech, G. & Svartvik J. (2002) A communicative grammar of English, Longman
4. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik J. (2008) A comprehensive
grammar of the English language, Longman.
5. Huddleston, R. (2003) The Cambridge grammar of the English language, CUP,
Cambridge
6. Paidos, Constantin (2001) English grammar: theory and practice, vol. 1 The Verb,
Polirom, Iasi
7. Haegeman, L. and Gueron, J. (1999) English grammar: a generative perspective,
Blackwell, Oxford
8. Thomson, A.J, Martinet A.V. (2001) A practical English grammar, exercises 1&2,
OUP, Oxford
Additional literature
9. Paidos, Constantin (2001) English grammar: theory and practice, vol. 1-2-3, , Polirom,
Iasi
10.Heim, Irene and Kratzer, Angelika (2000) Semantics in generative grammar,
Blackwell
