The Category of Aspect a mode a

The Category of Aspect • a mode (a phase) of an action: continuity, progressiveness, completion, resultativity, instantaneousness

The Category of Aspect Debated Problems 1. 2. 3. 4. The existence of this category in English The nature of the category The number of aspects The paradigmatic meaning of the continuous form 5. Interaction of verbal categories

The Category of Aspect Debated Problems 1. The existence of this category in English • Some do not recognize: - aspectual relations contextually by lexico-grammatical means - The continuous and perfect forms tenses

The Category of Aspect Debated Problems 2. Nature of the category logical grammatical (5 aspects) (3) (2) aspects

Aspect (Debated Problems) Number of Aspects: a Logical Category (5) 1. The ingressive aspect (the initial phase of an action) E. g. He went running. He started reading. 2. The durative aspect (a progressive action) E. g. He is eating. 3. The terminative aspect (an action as a finished whole) E. g. It hit the target.

Aspect (Debated Problems) Number of Aspects 4. The effective aspect (the final point of an action) E. g. He has done it. He came running. 5. The iterative aspect (repeated actions) E. g. He often gets sick. He would come here every day last month.

Aspect (Debated Problems) Number of aspects: a Grammatical Category • 3 aspects: - the imperfect aspect E. g. He was doing it. - the perfect aspect E. g. He has done it. - the indefinite aspect E. g. He did it.

Aspect (Debated Problems) Number of aspects: a Grammatical Category • 2 aspects • Professors Smirnitsky, Barkhudarov, Ilyish, Khlebnikova the common and the continuous the binary privative opposition of two forms: read: : am reading; reads: : is reading; has read: : has been reading

Aspect (Debated Problems): 4. The paradigmatic meaning of the continuous form - duration or limited duration O. Jespersen - simultaneity Vorontsova - continuity within certain time limits Ilyish - development Blokh the continuous forms // the noncontinuous forms

Aspect (Debated Problems) 5. Interaction of Verbal Categories • penetrates other verbal categories Tense and Aspect: - blended - inseparable - should be treated jointly Vorontsova and Ivanova Tense and Aspect: two distinct categories • Tense the time of an action • Aspect development of an action professors Barkhudarov, Smirnitsky, Ilyish

Aspect: Neutralization of Forms • the continuous // the noncontinuous forms E. g. You are always complaining. = You always complain. continuous forms: semantically redundant ! stylistically extremely important

Aspect Stylistic Importance • continuous forms impart emotiveness, expressiveness, intensiveness and evaluation (positive and negative) to a sentence or text

Aspect: The Semantic Content of Continuos Forms rather complex: • the paradigmatic invariant (constant) meaning of continuity • the syntagmatic variable (changing) meaning of permanence, timelessness, futurity, emotiveness, intensiveness, expressiveness, evaluation

The Frequent Usage of Continuous Forms in Modern English • artistic considerations: more emphatic than noncontinuous forms • psychological explanation The British are becoming more impulsive, forgetting about their traditional reticence • more frequent in the speech of females

Aspect: Grammatical Metaphor • semantic disagreement between the non-dynamic meaning of the verb and the dynamic meaning of a continuous form • Discourse more dynamic, emotive, evaluatory: E. g. I’m not listening, I’m not seeing, I’m not feeling. I’m falling in love with you again.

Aspect: The Stylistic Value of Continuous Forms • Artistic texts: impart dynamism to normally undynamic verbs E. g. Now he was remembering everything. Is she still liking England? Loving it.

Aspect: The Stylistic Value of Continuous Forms • an ironic effect based upon contrasts and contradictions E. g. You are being very charitable today. The Continuous Form limits the action to a certain moment in time. However a person, normally, cannot be charitable for a very limited period of time. It is his permanent characteristics.

Aspect: The Stylistic Value of Continuous Forms • Create the cinematic effect of immediacy, a sense of sharing thus contribute to the authenticity of the text (its plausibility and veracity) E. g. Edna sees to her horror his hair is snow -white. Jimmy! Too late, too late! The tears are running down his face; he is crying now. (K. Mansfield)