The perfective aspect (abbreviatedPFV), sometimes called the aoristic aspect,[1] is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole, i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imperfective aspect, which presents an event as having internal structure (such as ongoing, continuous, or habitual actions). The term perfective should be distinguished from perfect (see below).
The distinction between perfective and imperfective is more important in some languages than others. In Slavic languages, it is central to the verb system. In other languages such as German, the same form such as ich ging ("I went", "I was going") can be used perfectively or imperfectively without grammatical distinction.[2] In other languages such as Latin, the distinction between perfective and imperfective is made only in the past tense (e.g., Latin veni "I came" vs. veniebam "I was coming", "I used to come").[3] However, perfective should not be confused with tense—perfective aspect can apply to events in the past, present, or future.
The perfective is often thought of as for events of short duration (e.g., "John killed the wasp"). However, this is not necessarily true—a perfective verb is equally right for a long-lasting event, provided that it is a complete whole; e.g., Tarquinius Superbus regnavit annos quinque et viginti (Livy) "Tarquin the Proud reigned for 25 years."[4] It simply "presents an occurrence in summary, viewed as a whole from the outside, without regard for the internal make-up of the occurrence."[5]
The perfective is also sometimes described as referring to a "completed" action, but it would be more accurate to say that it refers to an action or situation that is seen as a complete whole; e.g., the Russian perfective future я убью тебя "I shall kill you" refers to an event that has not yet been completed.[6]
The essence of the perfective is an event seen as a whole. However, most languages that have a perfective use it for various similar semantic roles—such as momentary events and the onsets or completions of events, all of which are single points in time and thus have no internal structure. Other languages instead have separate momentane, inchoative, or cessative aspects for those roles, with or without a general perfective.
Equivalents in English
English has neither a simple perfective nor imperfective aspect; see imperfective for some basic English equivalents of this distinction.
When translating into English from a language that has these aspects, the translator sometimes uses separate English verbs. For example, in Spanish, the imperfective sabía can be translated "I knew" vs. the perfective supe "I found out", podía "I was able to" vs. pude "I succeeded", quería "I wanted to" vs. quise "I tried to", no quería "I did not want to" vs. no quise "I refused". The Polish perfective aspect is translated into English as a simple tense and the imperfective as a continuous; for example the imperfective "oglądałem" is translated into "I was watching", while the perfective "obejrzałem" is translated into "I watched". Such distinctions are often language-specific.
Marking
Languages may mark perfective aspect with morphology, syntactic construction, lexemes/particles, or other means.
Thai: the aspect marker ขึ้น/kʰɯ̂n/, grammaticalized from the word for "ascend," indicates a certain type of underconstrained perfective aspect when it follows a main verb[8]
Hindi: the perfective aspect is marked using the perfective aspect participle. The perfective participle is constructed as shown in the table below, the consonant -य्- (-y-) is added to the perfective suffix when the verb root ends in a vowel.[9]
Perfective Participle in Hindi
verb root ending
in a consonant
verb root ending
in a vowel
♂
♀
♂
♀
Singular
ा (-ā)
ी (-ī)
-या (-yā)
-यी (-yī)
Plural
े (-ē)
ीं (-ī̃)
-ये (-yē)
-यीं (-yī̃)
Perfective vs. perfect
The terms perfective and perfect should not be confused.
A perfect tense (abbreviated PERF or PRF) is a grammatical form used to describe a past event with present relevance, or a present state resulting from a past situation. For example, "I have put it on the table" implies both that I put the object on the table and that it is still there; "I have been to France" conveys that this is a part of my experience as of now; and "I have lost my wallet" implies that this loss is troublesome at the present moment. A perfect tense does not necessarily have to be perfective in aspect. For example, "I have been waiting here for an hour" and "I have been going to that doctor all my life" are perfect but also imperfective in aspect.
There are some languages, however, such as Modern Greek, in which the perfect tense is always perfective.[10]
Hindustani (aka Hindi-Urdu) has 3 grammatical aspectsː Habitual, Perfective and Progressive. Each aspect is constructed from its participle and a number of auxiliary verbs can be used with the aspectual participles such asː honā (to be, to happen), rêhnā (to stay, to remain), jānā (to go), ānā (to come), and karnā (to do). These verbs themselves can be made into aspectual participles and can be used with the default auxiliary verb honā (to be), hence forming sub-aspects that combine the nuance of two aspects.[11][12] The auxiliary rêhnā (to stay) gives a nuance of continuity of the perfective state, jānā (to go) is used to construct the passive voice (in its habitual subaspect)[13] and also shows that the action is completed (in its perfective subaspect), karnā (to do) gives the nuance that the perfective action is repeated habitually.
Simple
Aspect
Perfective Aspect
(infinitive forms)
honā
(to happen)
huā honā
(to have happened)
huā rêhnā
(to have happened)
*huā jānā
(x)
huā karnā
(to happen)
karnā
(to do)
kiyā honā
(to have done)
kiyā rêhnā
(to have done)
kiyā jānā
(to be done)
kiyā karnā
(to do)
marnā
(to die)
marā honā
(to have died)
marā rêhnā
(to have died)
marā jānā
(to die)
marā karnā
(to die)
1 The auxiliary jānā (to go) can only be used with the perfective aspect participle if the verb is transitive, or intransitive but volitional. So, *huā jānā is not valid construction. marnā (to die) is intransitive but it's a volitional action and hence "marā jānā" is a valid construction.
Noteː Most nuances generated by the auxiliaries are not uniquely expressed in English and hence many verbs above have the same translation in English but don't have the same nuances in Hindi-Urdu.
Conjugating the auxiliary verbs which are in the infinitive form above into their aspectual forms using the auxiliary honā (to be) gives the following subaspectual forms of the perfective aspect in their infinitive formː[14]
Perfective Aspect
rêhnā
jānā
karnā
Habitual
subaspect
Perfective
subaspect
Habitual
subaspect1
Perfective
subaspect1
Progressive
subaspect2
Habitual
subaspect
huā rêhtā honā
(to stay happened)
huā rahā honā
(to have stayed happened)
*huā jātā honā
(x)
*huā gāyā honā
(x)
huā jā rahā honā
(to keep happening continuously)
huā kartā honā
(to happen perfectively and habitually)
kiyā rêhtā honā
(to stay done)
kiyā rahā honā
(to have stayed done)
kiyā jātā honā
(to be done)
kiyā gayā honā
(to have been done)
kiyā jā rahā honā
(to have been doing continuously)
kiyā kartā honā
(to do perfectively and habitually)
marā rêhtā honā
(to stay dead)
marā rahā honā
(to have stayed dead)
marā jātā honā
(to be dead)
marā gayā honā
(to have killed oneself)
marā jā rahā honā
(to have been dying continuously)
marā kartā honā
(to die perfectively and habitually)3
1 When the auxiliary jānā (to go) is used, only transitive and volitional intransitive verbs can be put into the habitual and perfective subaspect. So, *huā jātā honā and *huā gāyā honā are not valid constructions.
2 The construction "huā jā rahā honā" somehow is a valid construction but it means the same (but more emphasised) as "hotā jā rahā honā" which is the progressive subaspect of the habitual aspect using the auxiliary jānā (to go).
3 This usage of this verb is limited to contexts such as "dying in a videogame"
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to any flow of time during the event. Imperfective aspect is used for situations conceived as existing continuously or repetitively as time flows.
A verb is a word that in syntax generally conveys an action, an occurrence, or a state of being. In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive. In many languages, verbs are inflected to encode tense, aspect, mood, and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender or number of some of its arguments, such as its subject, or object. Verbs have tenses: present, to indicate that an action is being carried out; past, to indicate that an action has been done; future, to indicate that an action will be done.
The preterite or preterit is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past tense. In general, it combines the perfective aspect with the past tense and may thus also be termed the perfective past. In grammars of particular languages the preterite is sometimes called the past historic, or the aorist. When the term "preterite" is used in relation to specific languages, it may not correspond precisely to this definition. In English it can be used to refer to the simple past verb form, which sometimes expresses perfective aspect. The case of German is similar: the Präteritum is the simple (non-compound) past tense, which does not always imply perfective aspect, and is anyway often replaced by the Perfekt even in perfective past meanings.
In linguistics, a participle is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, participle has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a laughing face".
In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French aimera, meaning "will love", derived from the verb aimer ("love"). The "future" expressed by the future tense usually means the future relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is used it may mean the future relative to some other point in time under consideration.
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs sang, went and washed. Most languages have a past tense, with some having several types in order to indicate how far back the action took place. Some languages have a compound past tense which uses auxiliary verbs as well as an imperfect tense which expresses continuous or repetitive events or actions. Some languages inflect the verb, which changes the ending to indicate the past tense, while non-inflected languages may use other words, such as "yesterday" or "last week" etc to indicate that something took place in the past.
The perfect tense or aspect is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. An example of a perfect construction is I have made dinner. Although this gives information about a prior action, the focus is likely to be on the present consequences of that action. The word perfect in this sense means "completed".
The continuous and progressive aspects are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action or state in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.
The imperfect is a verb form that combines past tense and imperfective aspect. It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to walk". It contrasts with preterite forms, which refer to a single completed event in the past.
The imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a general imperfective, others have distinct aspects for one or more of its various roles, such as progressive, habitual, and iterative aspects. The imperfective contrasts with the perfective aspect, which is used to describe actions viewed as a complete whole.
A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be.
The present perfect is a grammatical combination of the present tense and perfect aspect that is used to express a past event that has present consequences. The term is used particularly in the context of English grammar to refer to forms like "I have finished". The forms are present because they use the present tense of the auxiliary verb have, and perfect because they use that auxiliary in combination with the past participle of the main verb.
Hindustani, the lingua franca of Northern India and Pakistan, has two standardised registers: Hindi and Urdu. Grammatical differences between the two standards are minor but each uses its own script: Hindi uses Devanagari while Urdu uses an extended form of the Perso-Arabic script, typically in the Nastaʿlīq style.
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying. The term is also used more broadly to describe the syntactic expression of modality – that is, the use of verb phrases that do not involve inflection of the verb itself.
Tense–aspect–mood or tense–modality–aspect is a group of grammatical categories that are important to understanding spoken or written content, and which are marked in different ways by different languages.
In linguistics, the aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state. As its name suggests, the habitual aspect, not to be confused with iterative aspect or frequentative aspect, specifies an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily. As such, the habitual aspect provides structural information on the nature of the subject referent, "John smokes" being interpretable as "John is a smoker", "Enjoh habitually gets up early in the morning" as "Enjoh is an early bird". The habitual aspect is a type of imperfective aspect, which does not depict an event as a single entity viewed only as a whole but instead specifies something about its internal temporal structure.
In almost all modern Slavic languages, only one type of aspectual opposition governs verbs, verb phrases and verb-related structures, manifesting in two grammatical aspects: perfective and imperfective. The aspectual distinctions exist on the lexical level - speakers have no universal method of forming a perfective verb from a given imperfective one. Perfective verbs are most often formed by means of prefixes or suffixes, changes in the root, using a completely different root (suppletion), or changes in stress. Possessing a prefix does not necessarily mean that a verb is perfective.
Discontinuous past is a category of past tense of verbs argued to exist in some languages which have a meaning roughly characterizable as "past and not present" or "past with no present relevance". The phrase "discontinuous past" was first used in English in 1969, though not in the same sense; its use in the sense described here dates to an article by the linguists Vladimir Plungian and Johan von der Auwera published in 2006.
Hindustani verbs conjugate according to mood, tense, person and number. Hindustani inflection is markedly simpler in comparison to Sanskrit, from which Hindustani has inherited its verbal conjugation system. Aspect-marking participles in Hindustani mark the aspect. Gender is not distinct in the present tense of the indicative mood, but all the participle forms agree with the gender and number of the subject. Verbs agree with the gender of the subject or the object depending on whether the subject pronoun is in the dative or ergative case or the nominative case.
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