perfective aspect


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perfective aspect and imperfective aspect

Aspect is a grammatical term that has to do with how an action, state of being, or event unfolds in relation to time. The greatest distinction is made between the perfective aspect, which focuses on actions and events as whole elements, and the imperfective aspect, which deconstructs how an event is structured and located in time.
While other languages may mark the difference with an inflected verb form, English instead relies on a combination of particles, verbs, verb phrases, and lexical clues to determine whether the overall meaning of the action is perfective or imperfective.
The perfective aspect highlights actions, states, or events as a whole, presenting the actions from an outside perspective as complete, bounded events.
The imperfective aspect, on the other hand, is used when we focus on the internal structures of an action, state, or event as it relates to time, such as being continuous or habitual (repeating).
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perfective aspect

An aspect of verbs that expresses completed action.
Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.perfective aspect - the aspect of a verb that expresses a completed action
perfective
aspect - the beginning or duration or completion or repetition of the action of a verb
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
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In the few examples in which the perfective aspect is used, it occurs with discrete or dense continuous verbs, never with compact continuous verbs or with the progressive aspect.
Benedicte Guillaume 2014. A Corpus-Based Study of Since-Clauses in Contemporary English
For example, narratives of all kinds are typically formulated in past tense, perfective aspect, and realis modality, whereas expository, argumentative, or descriptive texts rely mainly on the timeless present, generic aspect, and irrealis modality (Longacre 1996, Ragnarsdottir et al.
Acquiring and expressing temporality in Hebrew: AT/(M/A) language
Events reported in the imperfective aspect are described as ongoing more frequently than events reported in the perfective aspect (Madden & Zwaan, 2003).
Como el tiempo verbal afecta a la interpretacion de las acciones: El pasado simple conduce a las personas a un nivel de representacion abstracto
Ergative Case is assigned to the agent subjects of transitive verbs in past tense or perfective aspect. Consider the following example:
THE NATURE OF ERGATIVE CASE MARKING IN PAHARI
This form, which shows up in language as the contrast of progressive and perfective aspect, lets us think change or movement.
Rodl, Sebastian. Categories of the Temporal: An Inquiry into the Forms of the Finite Intellect
With nauciti, the prefix encodes the entirety of the situation; that is, the situation viewed inside its endpoints (which is the core meaning of the perfective aspect).
The verbal prefix na- in Croatian: a cognitive linguistic analysis/Kognitivnolingvisticka analiza glagolskog prefiksa na- u hrvatskome
Dahl applies these criteria to both telic and atelic verbs in all five moods of the present, aorist, and perfect stems (indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, and injunctive) as well as to their participles and concludes that the present system possesses neutral aspect, the aorist perfective aspect, and the perfect anterior aspect.
Time, Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar: Exploring Inflectional Semantics in the Rigveda
In Awa Pit (17) declaratives can make a distinction between imperfective and perfective aspect (17a vs.
Polar interrogatives in Uralic languages a typological perspective
When it combines with perfective aspect the inherently stative verb dyum provides a shade of the meaning that is typically associated with grammatical aspectual category of perfective.
Tense, aspect and modality: a single complex category in Bhujel
According to Comrie (1976), Dowty (1979), and Klein (1994), among others, the perfective aspect in (lb) entails that the event of drawing a flower is complete; on the other hand, the imperfective aspect in (la) remains neutral about the completion of the event, which Wagner (2002: 122) terms "a lack of entailment".
Young children's understanding of ongoing vs. completion in imperfective and perfective participles
An aspectual future based on perfective aspect markers could not develop in English.
Markers of futurity in Old English and the grammaticalization of shall and will (1)
Our evidence at this stage is scanty and, although results point in the direction just indicated, unclonclusive since the verb caure [fall] is also used at the time in the present tense to express that he does not want something to fall down, which seems to indicate that it is not exclusively linked to a perfective aspect. Cortes and Vila (1991), in a study of a monolingual Catalan child and two bilingual Spanish/Catalan ones, acknowledge the same initial tendency to associate activity verbs with imperfective or progressive forms and achievement or accomplishment verbs with perfective tenses in their subjects.
A contrastive study of tense-aspect in the Catalan/English oral production of a young bilingual (1)

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