The Grammatical Category of Aspect
Aspect is a verbal grammatical category showing the way in which the action develops. The modern English aspect based on the contrast of continuous and non-continuous forms begins to take root in the Middle English period. The continuous aspect goes back to the Old English free phrase 'beon/wesan + Participle I'.
The problem of aspect in Modern English admits of four interpretations:
1) aspect is a semantic category,
2) there is no category of aspect in Modern English,
3) the category of aspect is closely connected with the
category of tense and cannot be severed from it,
4) the category of aspect is a specific grammatical category.
The semantic classification of aspects in English is carried out
by G. Curme who finds it possible to single out five aspects:
1) the durative aspect representing the action as continuing,
e.g.:
Mother is baking a cake now (V. Evans);
2) the ingressive aspect directing the attention to the initial
stage of the action or state, e.g.:
She began crying (A.S. Hornby, A.P. Cowie, A.C. Gimson);
3) the effective aspect directing the attention to the final point
of the activity or state, e.g.:
We stopped talking (A.S. Hornby, A.P. Cowie, A.C. Gimson);
4) the terminative aspect indicating an action as a whole, e.g.:
She read about the murder in the paper (Longman Dictionary
of Contemporary English);
5) the iterative aspect naming a succession of like acts, e.g.:
When we were children, we would go skating every week
(M. Swan).
The grammatical category of aspect, like any grammatical category, should have constant grammatical forms of its expression. In G. Curme's classification, it is only the durative and the terminative aspects that can be looked upon as grammatical aspects since to express the durative aspect we usually employ the ing-form, and the terminative aspect is generally associated with the base of the verb. As for the so-called iterative, ingressive, and effective aspects, they cannot be referred to the grammatical category of aspect because they lack constant grammatical forms of their expression.
H. Sweet and O. Jespersen deny the existence of the category of aspect altogether. They look upon continuous forms as tense forms. If it were so, continuous forms would represent a unity of two tenses: present and continuous in present continuous, past and continuous in past continuous, future and continuous in future continuous. But we know that no grammatical form exists that could combine in itself two meanings of one and the same grammatical category.
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V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova, L.L. lofik and some other linguists think that the category of aspect forms an inseparable whole with the category of tense. The majority of linguists, however, are of opinion that although the grammatical categories of aspect and tense are interrelated, they can and should be separated for linguistic analysis because they characterize the verbal action from different angles: tense refers the action to this or that time sphere, aspect describes the manner in which the action develops in this time sphere.
The majority of linguists speak of two aspects in Modern English: continuous and non-continuous (or common). The continuous aspect is marked both in form ('be + Participle P) and in meaning (it represents an action in its development). The non-continuous aspect is unmarked both in form (no characteristic pattern 'be + Participle F) and in meaning (it represents an action as simply occurring with no reference to its duration).
Having analyzed the opposition of continuous - non-continuous aspects, I.B. Khlebnikova draws the conclusion that it can be qualified as a privative opposition, one member of which is characterized by the presence of a certain feature, the other - by Hie absence of the same feature.
Since the relations between the members of the privative opposition of aspect are not polar but isomorphous, i.e. have points of contiguity, the opposition of aspect can be neutralized on the syntagmatic axis. According to the rules of neutralization, the unmarked non-continuous aspect finds itself in the position of neutralization because it has a more general meaning and no specific formal exponent.
We can consider as neutralization of duration those cases when the present indefinite is used instead of the present continuous in describing the things that happen, e.g.:
Smith passes to Webster, and Webster shoots and it's a goal\ (M. Swan).
This type of neutralization is often found in stage remarks.
However, neutralization of duration is more common on the axis of the past. Cf:
They were dancing while he was playing the guitar (V. Evans) - no neutralization.
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They danced while he was playing the guitar - partial neutralization.
They were dancing while he played the guitar - partial neutralization.
They danced while he played the guitar - complete neutralization.
Aspect neutralization is typical of non-terminative verbs, e.g.:
They were all sitting round the fire (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). —* They all sat round the fire.
With terminative verbs, aspect neutralization is impossible, for it usually brings about a change of meaning. Cf.:
We were meeting them at the concert hall, but we didn 't know which entrance they were waiting at (M. Foley, D. Hall).
/ met Jill at the bus stop this morning (Longman Language Activator).
The terminative verb meet in the continuous aspect describes an arranged action that was about to take place at some later time. The terminative verb meet in the non-continuous aspect denotes an action that took place in the past.
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