imperfective aspect
- noun
- /ɪmˈpɜrfɪktɪv ˈæspekt/
- Specialized
:
aspecto imperfectivo
- In the sentence "She would walk to school every day," the imperfective aspect emphasizes the repeated nature of the action.
Examples
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Following Bernard Comrie's pioneering work in 1976, the habitual has generally been viewed as a species of imperfective aspect, alongside continuous aspect, represented in English by the progressive tenses.
Academic text (2006) -
It is certainly true that 'used to' and 'would' translate the imperfective aspect of, say, French (3, 4), when the progressive is inappropriate, as does the simple past tense (5):
Academic text (2006) -
Her use of imperfective aspect denotes a long process, as does her iterative expression "and so many a time."
Academic text (2005) -
The imperfective aspect in English often describes actions that are ongoing, such as "I was studying for hours."
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When learning a new language, the imperfective aspect is important because it shows habitual actions, like saying "I often read books."
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is transparently compositional: 'imperfective' describes actions/states without specified boundaries and 'aspect' is a grammatical category, so together they straightforwardly denote the grammatical category expressing ongoing/habitual/repeated actions. This labeling pattern is common cross-linguistically, so a learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Imperfective aspect may come from the parts imperfective meaning 'not finished' and aspect meaning 'view'. Imagine a video that shows someone doing something in the middle or doing it again and again, not showing the start or the end. So, imperfective aspect means 'ongoing', 'repeated', or 'habitual' action rather than showing the start or end.
