Aspect allows speakers and writers to rpesent events as completed or as stretched out over time, as single occurrences or as repeated and habitual. Events that follow one after the other at the centre of a narrative are typically presented as completed; events that provide a background for other events are typically presented as stretched out in time. Tense allows events to be located in the past, present or fuiture time to be located relative to other events. The Passive and Middle constructions allow events to be presented from different perspectives and different participants can be highlighted or excluded.
Aspect: stative and dynamic verbs and clauses
The major distinction splitting verbs into two major lexical classes is between stative and non-stative (or dynamic) verbs. The classic English stative verb is KNOW. It has three central properties. A sentence such as The students knew most of the quotes cannot be used to answer the question What happened? cannot be used in WH clefts - *What the students did was know most of the quotes and cannot be made Progressive- *The students were knowing most of the quotes. Other common stative verbs are believe, understand, love, own.
Stative verbs typically exclude adverbvs such as enthusiastically and quickly-- *They quickly knew his parents is not acceptable and *They were quickly very cold is only acceptable with the Meaning *They quickly became cold'.
It is now accepted practice to divide dynamic verbs into three classes.
In fact, although people still talk of classes of verbs, it is clear that the relevant distinctions actually hold between whole clauses so that, strictly speaking, it is not the verb but the verb plus its complements that is involved. To talk of classes of verbs is not unjustified, however; verbs can be regarded as the head of clauses. In many languages the different clause structures are signalled by differences in the shape of the verb.
The three classes of dynamic verbs divide into two groups. The first is that of activity verbs, which denote situations that are seen as going on in the same kind of way over a period of time and as having no built-in boundary; they allow phrases such as for hours. Examples are in (1) and contrast with (2).
(1) a. Harriet talked to Emma for hours.
b. The dog chased the cat for days.
(2) a. Harriet told Emma the whole story.
b. The dog caught the cat.
What do we mean by 'built-in boundary'? (2a) describes the event of telling a story; this comes to an end when the end of the story is reached. Harriet and Emma can go on to practise their drawing or Emma can tell the story again, but both count as new events. The situation described by (1a) has no built-in boundary; there is no set point at which the event of talking comes to an end. The talking ends when Harriet or Emma grow tired or are interrupted but the clause tells us nothing about that.
Similarly the event described by (2b) comes to an end when the dog has trapped the cat; the event described by (1b) has no built-in boundary. The difference is brought out by the kinds of adverbs that can be added; (1a, b) allow adverbs such as for hours that accord with an activity being stretched out over time. They exclude adverbs such as in twenty minutes which related to ane vent being completed. In contrast, (2a, b) allow adverbs such as in twenty minutes but exlcude adverbs such as for hours: compare *Harriet told Emma the whole story for twenty minutes and *Harriet talked to Emma in twenty minutes.
(2b) is an example of an achievement verb. Achievements often have to do with the beginning or end of an event and are conceived of as having no duration. They might be described as being all boundary. Other acheivement verbs are WINK, KNOCK, STAB, BLINK as in Mrs. Jennings winked at Eleanor. Note that Eleanor was blinking, with an achievement verb, describes a series of repeated events, whereas Eleanor was talking, with an activity vern, describes a single event.
The other class of verbs that have a built-in booudnary are called accomplishments. They relate to sutuatuibs withtwo component, an activity phase and then a closing phase. Examples of accomplishent verbs/clauses are given in (3).
(3) a. The beaver buuilt a dam.
b. Anneplayed the tune on the piano.
(3a,b) describe situations with an activity phase in which th beaver collects materials, say, and buils the dam higher and higher, and an activity phase in which Anne plays the main body of the tune. These events are brought to a close by the beaver putting the final log or brach in place and Anne playing the final note Like activity verbs, clauses with an accomplishment verb in the Proogressive describes a single event, as in The beaver was building the dam.
Grammatical aspect: Progressive and Simple aspect
English verbs, except the stative ones, occur in the Progressive or Simple forms The Progresive is a syntactic construction consisting of be plus the participle in -ing, as in (4a); the Simple form consists of just the verb stem plus -s or -ed, as in (4b). In here, we ignore irregular verbs such a swim
(4) a. Jane was playing the piano.
b. Jane played the piano.
Presented with examples out of context, native speakers of English interpret clauses with progresssive verbs in the past tene as presenting a single event as ongoing: (4a) and Frank Churchill was crossing the street. They interpret clauses with the past tense Simple form as presenting a single event as completed. Such clauses can also be given a habitual or repeated itnerpretation, as in Jane played the piano every day and Frank Churchill crossed the street several times. It is the ingle-completed-evnt interpretation that is the favourite or default one out of context.
A change from past to present tense does not affect the interpretatin of verbs in the Progressive but it does affec tthe interpretation of Simple forms. Out of context, present tense Simple forms are typically interpreted as presenting an event as habitual. Jane visits Emma every Tuesday, Tess always knocks at the door before she comes in, Frank Churchill crosses the street every time he sees Mr. Knightley approaching. Present tense Simple forms can be given single-event interpretation but only in special contexts. One is the 'sporting commentary', with many examples such as Savage runs up, bowls and Dither is out lbw. The other is a type of narrative in the present tense, for eaxmple, stage directions or jokes: Tess knowcks at the door. Receiving no reply, she opens it, shouts 'Hello' and goes into the ball; This man goes into a Goasgow bar with a crocodile on a lead and asks the barman 'Do you serve X?"
to be continued