The category of aspect is one more often applied to languages such as Russian or Hopi, but it
is, in fact, equally applicable to English since the so-called “compound tenses”, the perfect and
the progressive, are better treated as expressions of the aspect. Aspect (which translates the
Russian term for ‘view’) can be defined as the view taken of an event, or the “aspect” underwhich it is considered, basically whether it is seen as complete and whole (perfective aspect)
or as incomplete and ongoing (imperfective aspect). The simple past tense in English is
perfective in aspect since it views events as complete and whole, e.g., Yesterday, I drove to
town, ran some errands, and visited with my friends. The progressive periphrasis, consisting of
be + the present participle, presents actions as in progress, ongoing, and incomplete (not yet
ended). It thus expresses imperfective aspect. It is the usual way to express a situation
happening at the very moment of speaking, which by definition is incomplete. However,
depending upon the temporal nature of the situation expressed by the verb (a topic to be
treated in more detail in the next chapter) — in essence, whether it is punctual or durative —
the progressive may denote somewhat diVerent situations:
1. a continuous activity: She is swimming. They were cleaning the house when I called.
2. a repeated activity (iterative aspect): He is bouncing the ball. The light was flashing when
I entered the house. He is breaking dishes (*a dish). People (*a person) will be leaving early.
3. a process leading up to an endpoint: The child is finishing the puzzle. She was solving the
problem when she was interrupted.
Note that in all cases, the activity in question is ongoing and hence not complete, either at the
present moment or in reference to some time in the past (expressed in the when-clause). The
progressive is generally incompatible with static situations since they are nondynamic and
hence cannot been seen as ongoing or in progress, e.g., *I am liking chocolate, *I am having lots
of work to do.
5
Both themeaning and categorization of the other periphrasis in English, the perfect, consisting
of have + the past participle, pose diYculties for scholars. However, it is widely agreed
that the perfect is an aspect category (rather than a tense category) and that it presents the
“current relevance” of a past event. The past event is relevant either by its continuation into the
present (and beyond) or by its results in the present. Whether it is one of the other depends
again on the inherent temporal nature of the situation expressed by the verb’s lexical meaning:
continuative: I have lived here since childhood. (state)
She has sung in the choir for ten years. (habit)
The preacher has talked for the last hour. (continuous activity)
The child has coughed all night. (iterated activity)
resultative: She has recovered from the flu. (activity with a necessary endpoint)
I have lost my keys. (punctual event)
I have read the novel. (activity with a neccessary endpoint)
Our dog has just been run over. (cf. Our dog was just run over.)(punctual event)
In the case of the continuative perfect, the state or event has duration; it continues from the
past into the present and possibly beyond. In the case of the resultative perfect, the event is
completed, but has some significance to the present. Thus, while I have eaten breakfast (today/
*yesterday) would imply that one is still full (and could be said only in the morning), I ate
breakfast (today/yesterday) would have no such implicationThe aspectual periphrases combine with tense forms — tense is expressed on the
auxiliary verb — to give the following forms:
– present progressive: she is singing (action ongoing at the present moment);
– past progressive: she was singing (action ongoing at some moment in the past);
– future progressive: she will be singing (action to be ongoing at some moment in the future);
– present perfect: she has sung (past action with results in the present);
– past perfect: she had sung (past action with results at some past moment or completed
prior to some past moment “past-in-the-past”); and
– future perfect: she will have sung (future action with results at some future moment or
completed prior to some future moment “past-in-the-future”).
The two aspectual periphrases may also combine in the order perfect + progressive, as in I
have been reading the novel for the last hour, to express an action which has been ongoing from
some moment in the past to the present (and possibly beyond). What would the past +
perfect + progressive (e.g., I had been reading the novel for the last hour) and future + perfect
+ progressive (e.g., I will have been reading the novel for the last hour) mean?
A number of other aspectual periphrases in English distinguish the beginning of
situations (ingressive aspect), the continuation of situations (continuative aspect), and the end
or termination of situations (egressive aspect), e.g., It started/continued/stopped raining (these
aspects will be treated further in Chapter 10). In contrast to the perfect aspect, we can
recognize a prospective aspect consisting of be + infinitive, e.g., she is to see her doctor tomorrow.
The habitual aspect, which views a situation as repeated on diVerent occasions, has been
treated in the discussion of the nonpast and past tenses above.
Mood
Mood is rather diYcult to define, but it can said simply to be an indication of the speaker’s
attitude towards what he or she is talking about, whether the event is considered fact
(indicative) or nonfact (subjunctive, imperative). Nonfact encompasses a number of diVerent
degrees of reality, including wishes, desires, requests, warnings, prohibitions, commands,
predictions, possibilities, and contrary-to-fact occurrences.
The indicative is expressed by the simple form of the verb. In earlier stages of English, the
subjunctive was expressed by special inflected forms of the verb, but in Modern English, only
remnant forms of the subjunctive remain: these are identifiable by the lack of -s in the 3rd p
sg pres (since historically the ending was an -e which was gradually lost) and by use of be for
all persons and numbers of the present tense and of were for the past tense. In Modern English, the subjunctive has been replaced by other modal forms containing
modal auxiliaries or their phrasal equivalents, as in He may leave, You shouldn’t wait, Would
you pass the salt?, It might rain, You ought to try harder. Modal adverbs such as maybe, possibly,
or perhaps are also used, as are modal adjectives such as possible, probable, or necessary. A
more colloquial, but very common, means of expressing the subjunctive is by the use of firstperson
parentheticals, or what have been called comment clauses: He would be happy to help,
I think or You’re right, I guess.
The imperative is a subclass of the subjunctive which expresses direct commands. In
English the imperative has a special syntactic form: it is a subjectless sentence containing a
bare form of the verb, as in Go!, Be quiet!, Don’t disturb me! The imperative is addressed to a
second person you. There are also an imperative with let’s addressed to the 1st person plural,
to oneself and to others present, as a kind of suggestion (e.g., Let’s see a movie tonight) and an
imperative with let addressed to the 3rd personVoice
The category of voice, though usually considered a category of the verb, is actually relevant to
the entire sentence. Voice is an indication of whether the subject is performing action of the
verb or being something (active voice) or whether the subject is being aVected by the action
or being acted upon (passive voice). While the active is expressed by the simple forms of the
verb, the passive is expressed periphrastically:
–by be + the past participle, as in The report was written (by the committee); or
–by get + the past participle, as in The criminal got caught (by the police).
The diVerence between the be-passive and the get-passive is that the former focuses on the
resultant state (‘the report is in a written state’) while the latter focuses on the action bringing
about the state. In the passive, the logical subject — the agent — moves out of the position of
grammatical subject and is relegated to a by-phrase. However, it is common to delete the
by-phrase in the passive, to omit mention altogether of the agent who performed the action.
This is a manifestation of one of the rhetorical functions of the passive (see Chapter 11).
Another distinction of voice is the middle voice, in which the action of the verb reflects
back upon the subject; in English, the middle is generally expressed with a reflexive pronoun
(a form in -self), which indicates the sameness of the subject and the object, as in Henry
shaved (himself), Terry bathed (herself), Felicia cut herself. A form which is sometimes called a
“middle” is what Otto Jespersen calls a notional passive; this is a sentence which is active in
form but passive in meaning: for example, The shirt washes easily (=‘the shirt is easily
washed’), these oranges peel easily (=‘these oranges are easily peeled’), the cake should cook
slowly (=‘the cake should be slowly cooked’). Note that nearly all notional passives contain a
manner adverb. They diVer from regular passives in that, not only do they occur without
explicit agents, there is never even an implicit agent (*these oranges peel easily by you).
Another place where forms may be active in form but passive in meaning are some infinitives,
such as these apples are ready to eat (=‘these apples are ready to be eaten’) or there are the
dishes to do (=‘there are the dishes to be done’). A construction such as that movie is filming
in Vancouver, which is also active in form but passive in meaning (=‘that movie is being
filmed in Vancouver’) is a remnant or an earlier period when there was no progressive passive
construction (as in the customers are being served) but instead a simple progressive was used
(as in the customers are serving well).
In conclusion, we can approach the categories from a diVerent perspective by noting
which diVerent parts of speech each of the grammatical categories is relevant to:
–nouns: number, gender, case, (person), and definiteness;
–pronouns: number, gender, case, and person;
–adjectives and some adverbs: degree; and
–verbs: number, person, tense, aspect, mood, and voice.
No grammatical categories are relevant to prepositions and conjunctions, which are invariable.