The category of aspect

Every action is characterised not only by the time of its occurrence but also by the manner of its performance. The grammatical category describing the manner of the action is called the aspect. The aspect shows whether the action is represented as process, result, whether it was in duration for a certain period of time. In E-sh aspect is inseparately connected with the tense form. The aspect auxiliary indicates not only the manner of the action but the time too. That’s why tense & aspect in E-sh are called conjugated categories.

Traditionally there are distinguished 4 aspects: 1)the Perfect aspect presents an action in the form of the result achieved by a certain moment in the Present, Past or Future. 2)The Continuous or Progressive aspect presents an action in the process of its performance at a certain moment in the Present, Past or Future. Some verbs however are not used in this aspect—verbs of perception (to see, to hear), verbs of mental activity (to know, to believe, to recognise, to suppose), verbs denoting volition (to want, to desire, to wish), verbs denoting abstract relations (to have, to be, to belong, to depend, to consist). 3) the Perfect Continuous or Perfect Progressive aspect. It describes the period of duration of an action which is indicated either by an adverbial modifier (for 2 hours, since) or by a temporal clause (since I came here). 4)the Indefinite or the Simple aspect. It’s very difficult to characterise the manner of the action in this case because unlike in the 3 aspects above mentioned there is no special auxiliary describing the manner of this action in this case. Some scholars say that the Indefinite aspect has the zero meaning of the aspect because it only indicates the time of an action. For this reason this aspect is called Indefinite & E-sh scholars call this group Simple Tenses which have the meaning of time but no aspect meaning.

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