Aspects and stuff. Help

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Taurenzine
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Aspects and stuff. Help

Post by Taurenzine »

So I'm making a language, duh (most of us are) and I'm want to use some aspects, three to be exact:
first one is momentane- action done one time. Ex:Jump

Second one is progressive- action that is being done. Ex:Running (not jumping, explained in next aspect)

third one (the subject of half this topic)- an action done repetetively. Different from progressive. Ex: 'Jumping' in english doesn't usually mean that you're in the middle of a jump, it means that you're jumping over and over again multiple times, despite it having the same morphology of progressive aspect in english. This means that the word "jumping" would be in this third aspect.

My point is that some verbs make more sense to view them as the continuation of one long action and some make more sense to view as a continuative repetition of many of the same actions, so I'm planning my aspects accordingly. Hence the third aspect.

Now the first question: whats the name of the third aspect? I just wanna know. I mean I'll continue to make my language and just reference it under a different name until I get an answer I guess.

Now second question: there's another aspect that I wanna add that I've asked about before. People have said that its basically not an aspect and that its some wierd mix of tense and aspect and stuff, but its pretty common in english (and I'm adding it because my native language is english, and although I think that english is pretty illogical I think that it has some pretty useful things in it, including this 'aspect'). In english they call it the "perfect-progressive" where an action started in the past and is continuing to the present or future. Ex: I have been running. I've noticed that this 'aspect' can be applied to both my second and thrid aspect to make two slightly different aspects, so I wanna know if I can use it soon so I can put it into my language. The weird thing about this 'aspect' is the fact that it takes into account two-three tenses: past, present, and future. Do I even need it? Could I just split it into two sentences? like, I was running, and I'm still running? or I was running, and I will continue to run? Its almost like it actually is the meaning of two sentences just shoved into one. Idk I just want elaboration. and If I'm gonna use the whole two sentence thing I'm gonna need auxiliaries like 'still' and maybe an auxiliary that means "continue" or something. Idk.

Please don't skim read this, and read the entire thing if you want to comment. I'm very prone to brain puking so bare with it.
Davush
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Re: Aspects and stuff. Help

Post by Davush »

I think a term which probably comes close to what you're looking for is iterative aspect.

I also think there seems to be a bit of confusion about understanding of tense/aspect, possibly because of the way conventional grammars use the terms when describing English.

I've always struggled categorising the perfect as a tense or aspect in English, because it combines parts of the two which might partly explain your confusion as to how it's interacting with tense. In general, the perfect refers to a past event which has relevance to the present. Whether the perfect is strictly a tense or aspect seems to still be under debate, but in terms of time, the action almost always occurred in the past. As you have noted, the perfect can also be combined with a progressive aspect. The perfect in English does have some nuances beyond just combining aspect & tense, though.

I.e. 'I have been running' in English isn't necessarily equivalent to 'I was running and I will continue to run/I still am running'.

It is up to you how your language handles this. If you want to combine the perfect with the iterative, it would produce something meaning 'I have been jumping (repetitively)'. In this case, it would seem that some verbs are semantically more likely to take the iterative than progressive.
Alternatively, some languages would just use an imperfective i.e. 'I am/was jumping' or maybe just a simple past tense.
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KaiTheHomoSapien
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Re: Aspects and stuff. Help

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

I agree with Davush. Your example with "jumping" would probably fall under the iterative aspect (sometimes call "semelfactive"). It describes repeated action in one instance (as opposed to the frequentative, which describes repeated action over several instances). So iterative would be "he is jumping" (performing an action that lexically entails repetition; it's a form of aktionsart in this case) and frequentative would be something like "he jumps a lot" (it happens frequently).

I'm afraid I don't know enough to help you with the second question.
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Taurenzine
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Re: Aspects and stuff. Help

Post by Taurenzine »

Thank you for both of your answers. My first question has been answered, and for my second question, I think I'll just call it perfect-progressive and call it a day. The perfect aspect in my opinion is a little bit uneccesary if you have a language with a past tense. But for languages like Mandarin its very useful. For that reason, I will not include the Perfect aspect in my language, but I will include the perfect-progresssive and the perfect-iterative (thats what I'm gonna call it).

Actually now that I think about it I think I should just combine the progressive and iterative: the iterative is more common anyway so when its progressive it should just be determined by context..... Idk I'll get back to you on that. Maybe.

Anyways thanks.
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Re: Aspects and stuff. Help

Post by clawgrip »

Re. perfect progressive:
First, to get this one thing out of the way, in English, typically only dynamic verbs can take the progressive or perfect progressive. (e.g. we don't say "I have been knowing French since I was 12 years old").

The perfect for stative verbs functions more or less the same as the perfect progressive for dynamic verbs (cf. "He has been sleeping for two hours" and "He has known about it for 2 hours"). This differs from the perfect for dynamic verbs ("He has slept").

A general description of the perfect used with dynamic verbs:
- the action was completed before the reference time frame
- the result or effect likely continues to the reference time frame
- the number of times the action occurred may optionally marked
- how long before the reference time the action occurred cannot be indicated
- how long the action took/the internal time structure of the action cannot be indicated

For the perfect progressive on the other hand (also used with dynamic verbs):
- the action began before the reference time
- the action continued at least until the reference time or shortly before, and it may continue beyond the reference time
- the action may have some sort of effect on the reference time frame
- the number of times can be referenced adverbially (e.g. occasionally, repeatedly), but not specifically (e.g. once, seven times, etc.)
- how long the action took may optionally be marked, by indicating either the span itself or the starting time. If it is not marked, it is generally either implied from context, or understood to be some "significant" length of time.
- whether the action was completed or not cannot be indicated

I hope this helps.
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Taurenzine
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Re: Aspects and stuff. Help

Post by Taurenzine »

You know, after thinking about it, I think its actually a better Idea just to not have any tense at all. Perfect and perfect-progressive are kinda intertwined with tense anyways, so if I get rid of tense and only have aspects as well as adpositional phrases that state when an action took place, it would be a lot easier. I wouldn't have to say "I've been running", I could just say "I run since the past until the present" or something like that.... Or maybe I could just stick with aspects.

Whatever, all I know for sure is that my morphological system for tense is no longer.

EDIT: and I forgot to say thank you, that was very helpful :)
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