volume 8, issue 2, 2016, pages 160-183

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64438/sbsFFCQ9649
Published online: 2016-12-01
Published in print: 2016-12-30

Abstract: Verbal aspect is a combination of two categories: grammatical aspect and actionality (lexical aspect). Grammatical aspect expresses perfectivity and imperfectivity, which have their own forms in the verbal system of a language. Actionality is a situation type, a basic semantic feature of a given verb. Various situation types give rise to various pairs of aspectual oppositions: state/ingressiveness, progressiveness/result, attempt/result, process/result, one appearance/repetition, complexive/progressive durativity, open/closed series. In Greek, these aspectual oppositions are regularly expressed with the grammatical means of the respective forms of the present and aorist stem. In Slovak, these oppositions usually can be expressed with the pairs of perfective and imperfective verbs. However, the English aspectual system is assymetric and aspectual distinctions can often be expressed only with circumlocution.