The category of aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of manner of action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The opposition is privative both in the plane of content and in the plane of expression. It is easily neutralized, i. e. noncontinuous forms substitute continuous forms when the notion of duration is expressed by other means (eg. lexical).

The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs. There are some verbs in English that do not normally occur with progressive aspect, even in those contexts in which the majority of verbs necessarily take the progressive form. Among the so-called ‘non-progressive’ verbs are think, understand, know, hate, love, see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc. The most striking characteristic that they have in common is the fact that they are ‘stative’ - they refer to a state of affairs, rather than to an action, event or process.

It should be observed, however, that all the ‘non-progressive' verbs take the progressive aspect under particular circumstances. As the result of internal transposition verbs of non-progressive nature can be found in the Continuous form: Now I'm knowing you. Generally speaking the Continuous form has at least two semantic features - duration (the action is always in progress) and definiteness (the action is always limited to a definite point or period of time). In other words, the purpose of the Continuous form is to serve as a frame which makes the process of

the action more concrete and isolated.

A distinction should be made between grammatical aspect and semantic aspectuality. English has an aspect system marked by the presence or absence of the auxiliary be contrasting progressive and non-progressive. The major aspectuality contrast is between perfective and imperfective. With perfective aspectuality the situation described in a clause is presented in its totality, as a

whole, viewed, as it were, from the outside. With imperfective aspectuality the situation is not presented in its totality, but viewed from within, with focus on the internal temporal structure or on some subinterval of time within the whole. The main use of progressive forms is to express a particular subtype of imperfective aspectuality.

As for the Russian verb, it has two aspects, the perfective and the imperfective. It is obvious at once that there is no direct correspondence between English and Russian aspects; for instance, the English continuous aspect is not identical with the Russian imperfective. The relation between the two systems is not so simple as all that. On the one hand, the English common aspect may correspond not only to the Russian perfective but also to the Russian imperfective

aspect; thus, he wrote may correspond both to написал and to писал. On the other hand, the Russian imperfective aspect may correspond not only to the continuous but also to the common aspect in English; thus, писал may correspond both to was writing and to wrote.