Aspect
From UNL Wiki
Aspect is category used in the grammatical description of verbs (along with tense and mood), referring primarily to the way the grammar marks the duration or type of temporal activity denoted by the verb.
Natural language
In synthetic languages, the distinction between grammatical tense, aspect and mood is fuzzy and at times controversial. In order to avoid the problems concerning isolating these categories, which are often amalgamated in a single morpheme, the UNLarium proposes a single TAM (Tense-Aspect-Mood) typology, to be found here.
UNL
In UNL, aspect is to be represented by attributes indicating the temporal internal structure of the event.
- Aspect values may be combined.
- I start to eat = eat.@inceptive
- I'm starting to eat = eat.@inceptive.@progressive
Examples
- @continuative: I'm still eating the apple.
- @experiential: I have already eaten an apple
- @habitual: I eat apples.
- @imperfective: I was eating the apple (when she came).
- @inceptive: I start eating the apple.
- @iterative: I ate and ate the apple.
- @perfective: I ate the apple.
- @progressive: I'm eating the apple.
- @prospective: I'm about to eat the apple.
- @terminative: I finished eating the apple.
