Aspect (definition)

This page is provides a definition for a technical term, to learn about Aspect in Scottish Gaelic see Aspect

Aspect is a grammatical term that refers to the duration of an event or state described by a verb. For example, an event that is ongoing in duration is characterized by either the imperfective or progressive. The progressive in English is marked by pairing the Auxiliary verb 'be' with a present participle or gerund like 'walking'. The sentence "I am walking" is in the progressive aspect, because it indicates that the duration of the event is on-going.

Aspect is often confused with tense, which is the time at which an event occurs (relative to the time of speech); voice, which is an operation that changes the number and type of arguments; and mood, which is the speaker's attitude towards the event; but is a distinct notion from all of these.

The general concept of aspect can be divided into two smaller categories:

• Viewpoint Aspect
• Lexical Aspect

See Also

• Aspect
• Tense (definition)
• Voice (definition)
• Inflection (definition)

External Links

Be very careful with wikipedia articles, which can be edited by anyone and often contain inaccuracies

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect
• http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAspect.htm

References

• Crystal, D. (2008) Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6th Edition. Wiley-Blackwell.