Introduction

The different ways of marking the verb phrase to convey the speaker’s perception of the event – its ‘aspect’ – are commonly called ‘tenses’. It is important, however, not to confuse tense and aspect, since the latter has less to do with time than with ‘shape’. It is another ‘dimension’, if you like.

Tasks

1 Aspect

English verbs are marked for two aspects: progressive (or continuous), and perfect. These are not mutually exclusive – they can combine. Can you identify examples of progressive and perfect aspect in this news report?

2 Tense and aspect

As we saw in the last unit, tense is notionally related to time, although there is no one-to-one match between time and tense. Aspect combines with tense to add a different set of meanings.

Look at these sentence pairs (from the Cambridge English Corpus). Can you identify the tense and the aspect in each case? The first one has been done for you.

• 1 a They meet at St James’s Park. Tense: present. No aspect.

• b They are meeting in room 356-S of the Centre Block. Tense: present. Aspect: progressive.

• 2 a Someone is waiting for a hip operation.

• b She was waiting for me.

• 3 a The process took longer than expected.

• b But the process was taking longer than expected.

• 4 a The boys have made a film in the sitting-room.

• b The boys had made a special effort to finish all their homework.

• 5 a They reach the village of Brenna.

• b They’ve reached their peak.

• 6 a Kafka has been writing a letter.

• b He’s writing on paper with a pencil.

3 Time, tense and aspect

Notice that, in the absence of context, it is not easy to determine the time of the events described in the previous task. For example, look at these sentences again: try to guess the time that is implied in each one, i.e. past, present, or future. To see if you were right, check the Key to read the more extended context.

• a They meet at St James’s Park.

• b They are meeting in room 356-S of the Centre Block.

• c Someone is waiting for a hip operation.

• d She was waiting for me.

• e They reach the village of Brenna.

• f They’ve reached their peak.