Aspect

General considerations: the aspect in the conjugation

Some definitions of a dubious term

The internal concept of unfolding of Paul Imbs is found, under other terms, in many definitions. Oswald Ducrot proposes this definition in 1972:

“indications of aspect are always interior with the predicate. The predicate comprises indeed, not only the idea of a certain quality or a certain action (" to be bleu" , " to come dîner"), but the idea of a certain mode of demonstration in the time of this action or this quality, the indication in the way in which they fill the period concerned with the stating: it is what is called the aspect there. ”

Although there seems to be a consensus on the concept even of aspect, and on what this term represents overall (in particular compared to time), the description of the various aspects is on the other hand very diverse; the same terms often return to several different concepts (see will infra).

Difference time-aspect

The aspect gives an indication compared to the moment when the lawsuit takes place, and not compared to the moment when one speaks (if not the aspect would merge with time). In other words, whereas time indicates where the lawsuit in time compared to the act of stating is, the aspect informs about its progression and its evolution. According to the terms of Paul Imbs, the lawsuit is considered under the angle of its internal unfolding .

Example: when his wife returns, Jean will have already left . Compared to that which says that (act of stating), these two actions did not take place yet (from where times: future and former future). But compared to the moment when the woman returns, Jean completed his action (from where the accomplished aspect of will have left) - contrary to his wife who is passing the threshold of the door (from where the unaccomplished aspect of will return).

Aspect, mode, time

For Gustave Guillaume, the aspect is more important than the mode, itself more important than time (or, better, the time ): indeed, all the verbal forms indicate at least an aspect, some of them have a mode, and some only indicate one time: for example, all the Infinitif S have an aspect, but do not indicate any mode nor time. Chanter is with the semantic Aspect imperfectif, like with the lexical Aspect coverbal unaccomplished. In the same way, the auxiliarisation of an infinitive such as to have sung does not give any indication of time: a false impression is given to us owing to the fact that to have sung is with the accomplished Aspect.

Consequently, for Guillaume, the aspect is an early seized of the kinetic movement of construction of a verbal image in the state of outline. The mode is a median seizure, and time (within the meaning of time ) is a late seizure, sophisticated, of a very completed verbal image.

grammatical Aspect/lexical Aspect/semantic Aspect

Certain aspects are systematic in certain languages. For example, in French, the preterit is always the mark of the unaccomplished aspect, like all the simple tenses, whereas made up times are always the mark of the accomplished aspect. It is about a grammatical Aspect, because the aspect depends then on the time to which the verb is conjugated.

Other verbs, on the other hand, depend on the direction of the verb (semantic Aspect), of the Co-text coverbal (auxiliary and adverbs: lexical Aspect), or finally of the inflections of conjugation (grammatical Aspect). Marc Wilmet calls this last aspect aspect affixal , which gathers according to him not only the aspects depending on the inflections, but as the aspects dependant on all Affixe S. In that it considers as the inflections are affixes like the others, unless it does not leave their differences on side for the study of the aspects. It is seen, the classification of the aspects depends much on the classification of their mark.

Nonverbal aspects

Aspect of the noun and the adjective

One sometimes extended the concept of aspect to the nouns and the adjectives. For example:

the article under development indicates the progressive aspect.
Of often attentive people indicates the iterative aspect.
a growing old man : inchoatif aspect (beginning of old age).
the completion of work : terminational aspect.

The list of the aspects grows then without end, the aspects of the nouns or the adjective being varied infinitely than the verbal aspects.

Cohabitation or incompatibility of several aspects

In French, several aspects always cohabit and are articulated between them in the same verbal form. For example, in Jean left the house , left contains at the same time the perfective aspect of the verb to leave in this context, the total aspect suitable for the preterit, and the nonaccomplished aspect specific to the simple forms of times.

Indeed all the verbs, in French, contain at least a semantic aspect in any event (except the Copule S and other emptied verbs of their direction). However, as soon as a verb is employed, it contains the accomplished or unaccomplished aspect, according to the form (simple or made up) of the time to which it is combined (including the infinitive, which has a simple or composed form: to eat/have eaten). Any verb thus has at least two French aspects.

A canonical example of this cohabitation is the articulation of the opposition secant/nonsecant with the opposition imperfectif/perfective. The verbs agree logically with the secant aspect when they are imperfectifs (Julien read) and with the not-secant aspect when they are perfective (the marchioness left). But of course another use can be done for an effect of particular direction.

However, certain telic verbs cannot receive the secant aspect. Thus, the action to build a house for one length of time specifies is telic: one cannot say Jean built a house for one month . The exact precision of the duration (beginning and end) prevents us from regarding the action at one exact moment of its unfolding (as in the imperfect one) and obliges us on the contrary to consider it overall (as in the preterit). A verb telic will be thus always with the not-secant aspect: Jean built his house for one month , Jean built his house for one month , Jean will build his house for one month .

Various theories of the aspects

Many grammars are based on different theories. Certain aspects seem however universally recognized, in spite of a sometimes different terminology: thus, the lexical aspect of Delphine Denis and Anne Sancier-Castle correspond obviously to the semantic aspect of Marc Wilmet. On the other hand, at the first, the question of the auxiliary is treated very differently from at Wilmet: this last regards any auxiliary as an autonomous morpheme compared to the verb, and it thus classifies all the aspects using an auxiliary among the coverbaux aspects , while Delphine Denis and Anne Sancier-Castle regard the modal auxiliaries (=> “periphrasis of aspect”) as very different from the auxiliary being and to have which would be only grammatical marks (=> or not accomplished achieved aspect).

Aspect and Aktionsart

For Oswald Ducrot, there are two fundamental distinctions in the aspects: perfective/imperfectif aspect, and accomplished/unaccomplished aspect. In addition, it distinguishes aspect (or subjective aspect ) and Aktionsart (or objective aspect , or mode of action ).

Aspects treated with an aim of standardization of the language

In school grammars, the aspect is sometimes not treated: it is the case also of very popular the Grammaire of French of Wagner and Pinchon. When the aspect is treated, it is it sometimes in an expeditious way: the goal is to use the aspect to explain a fact of language, often a form of conjugation. It is the case in this Larousse grammar, which uses only the aspects accomplished and not-accomplished to explain the form made up of certain times (to be noted that the analysis is long only of fifteen lines).

However it is seen here that the gaps of this classification brings the authors to an original and nonscientific use of the concept of accomplished Aspect. With that the problem of the made up Passé is added, sometimes achieved present, sometimes unaccomplished past (replacing in this case the Preterit). However, here, for the authors, the preterit would contain an accomplished aspect : consequently, the problem of the ambiguity of last made up appears insoluble.

Synthesis of the various aspects

The grammatical aspects (or affixaux)

accomplished/unaccomplished Aspect

In the achieved aspect, the action is considered beyond its term: from the point of view of that which acts the lawsuit of the verb is completed. E.g.: Jean sang , Jean had sung , Jean will have sung . At this time, Jean left, Jean had left, Jean will have left .

The nonaccomplished aspect considers the action proceeding: Jean sings , Jean sang , Jean sang . Jean leaves , Jean left , Jean left .

It is often believed that the preterit is accomplished and not the imperfect one, because one with the impression which the action is completed. And indeed, all the verbs with the past indicate a completed action from the point of view of that which speaks. But the aspect is a manner of considering the action at the time when it occurs and not compared to the moment when one speaks about it. The notion of aspect is released of the concept of time while answering this question: how does the action at the time evolve/move when it occurs (whatever the moment)? Answer: at the moment when " Jean chanta" , one sees Jean singing: the action is not finished (unaccomplished aspect), just as in Jean sang . And at the time when Jean sang / Jean had sung the action is already accomplished, one can see outgoing Jean of the academy of music: Jean had already sung lorqu' it left the academy / Jean already sang when it leaves the academy .

The difference preterit/imperfect is however not free and holds with the difference secant/not-secant Aspect.

secant/not-secant Aspect

The not-secant aspect considers an action of importance, in the foreground ( it sang ). The action is considered with limits that one knows ( it sang during 3 hours ), overall.

The secant, total or durative aspect considers an action which takes place in background, of less importance; the action is considered unbounded specifies, at one exact moment of its unfolding: in Jean sang when I left the academy , one can see solidified Jean, singing, while I left . One does not consider the action in his globality but on the contrary one takes it out of cut at a given time of his evolution, from where the secant term .

The durative term for secant (imperfect) is misleading. It should not be considered that this aspect indicates a certain duration (the length of an action is never indicated by the aspect) but that it seizes the action in its duration (whatever it is) and not at an exact moment ( specific ).

multiplicative Aspect

The multiplicative aspect does not return at a repetition rate like the frequentative aspect (or iterative), but to a multiplication of the lawsuit ( criailler ). It is about an aspect affixal and not grammatical.

progressive Aspect

The action is considered in its progression: the evil is growing ; I am singing .

semantic Aspect

Perfective/imperfectif aspect

static Aspect

The static aspect is the aspect of all the verbs which are neither perfective nor imperfectifs.

lexical Aspect

Aspects inchoatif and terminational

The inchoatif Aspect considers the action as being starting ( it falls asleep ).

The cessatif or terminational Aspect considers the action as being finishing.

semelfactif/iterative Aspect (or /fr équentatif)

Aspect telique/atelic

Treatment of the aspect according to the languages

Table of the correspondences between the languages

This table shows how much the resemblance between the languages (in particular French and English) is misleading. The aspects do not recover same reality according to the languages. There is often the same aspect for several times, or the same time recovers several aspects, this sometimes in the same language. Confusion reaches tops when, in France, a professor of English for example, wanting to speak about the perfective aspect , translated by the false-friend perfective aspect .

To speak about the Slavic perfektum , one during employed the perfective term very a long time . This aspect is so important into Slavic that one can speak about it in French without very knowing the aspects of French, by translating logically perfektum by perfective (false-friend). But for a few years, the concept of perfektum into Slavic has recovered two French concepts, on the one hand the Accompli (which is a grammatical Aspect) and on the other hand the Perfectif (which in French is a lexical Aspect and which does not correspond completely to the Slavic perfektum ). Besides number of French work give still the perfective word like accomplished synonym of (two different French concepts).

Treatment difference of the aspect

The manners of expressing the aspect as its importance in the system of the language are very variable. In certain languages, the verbal aspect forms integral part of the verbal system. Thus, in Russian or Slovenien, one employs two different verbs (generally by modification or addition of a Préfixe) to express the aspects perfective and imperfectif (Slovenien: piti to drink; spiti to drink of feature), while in Greek old it is by the choice of the desinential suffixes that one varies the aspect (perfective, imperfectif and static), which is especially expressed with the other modes that with the code. Consequently, in Russian, the oppositions of aspects are represented lexicalement (there exist two distinct lemmas to express the two aspects) while they are to it generally morphologiquement in Greek (it exists several Forme S for only one lemma; cf Conjugations of the old Greek ). In these two languages, moreover, the aspectual value of the verb is independent of that of the time, which it entirely does not replace: thus, it is possible to express an aspectual feature independently of time, like a perfective or imperfectif past, with the choice. In Greek, however, these possibilities are extended, time there being expressed only with the code, mode in which it is not possible to express one present other than imperfectif.

In other languages, like the Mandarin, the aspect is expressed independently of the verb, by means of postverbal particles or of end of sentence, like 了 the (aspect accomplished or inchoatif, according to its place) or 過 guo (past of experiment). These particles are more or less related to the expression of time ( the can be used as much for the past that at the present or the future while guo relates to only the past). In Creole inhabitant of Guadeloupe, in fact pre-verbal particles ( ka , ké , etc) play of the similar roles.

Lists of the unknown aspects of French

Continuatif aspect

Permansif aspect

Resultative aspect

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