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 on going 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), and voice which is an operation that changes the number and type of arguments, and mood (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

External Links

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAspect.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect