Re: Perfect/imperfect vs Past/present/future

Nihil Sum writes:
 > To whoever can help:
 >
 > I need to do some reading up on the differences between languages that see
 > verbs in terms of past/present/future, and those (like the Semitic
 > languages) that use only a perfect/imperfect distinction. There was a brief
 > blurb about it on a site mentioned here which gave some examples of Arabic
 > verb conjugations. It didn't really go into detail on how the
 > perfect/imperfect system works.
 > I'm thinking of using such a system in an upcoming project, but I need to
 > know how it works.
 > Any info you could point me to would be appreciated.
 >

Perfect/imperfect is an example of aspect, as opposed to tense
(although it's closer to tense than some aspects).  Generally speaking
(as I understand it) aspect concerns the "internal temporal
constituency" of an action, while tense locates it an an external
temporal continuum relative to the present...  Anyway, there's a
decent introduction to the various forms of aspect on Rick Harrison's
site:

http://www.invisiblelighthouse.com/langlab/aspect.html

It doesn't have a great deal on what you specifically asked for,
but it does explain the difference between perfect and perfective.

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful.