Re: Tense naming question

>I have recently modified the language I am currently working on to
>include two different past tenses. One is for actions that started in
>the past, but are still happening. The other for actions that started in
>the past are are no longer happening. Is there a name for these
>different tenses, and if not, does anyone have any good suggestions
>and/or interesting examples of naturals languages that have the same
>distinction?
In Spanish there are two such basic past tenses: "cantaba"
(she sang/used to sing, maybe she's still singing now) vs.
"cantó" (she sang, she's not singing now). This distinction
applies equally to the durative tenses of the 'was ...ing'
kind: "estaba cantando" (she was singing, maybe she's still
singing now) vs. "estuvo cantando" (she was singing, she's
not singing now). When applied to the compound tenses of
the 'had ...ed' kind, you get: "había cantado (she had sung)
vs. hubo cantado ([when/once] she had sung). The latter
is used in contexts where another past action followed
_right after_ the first had finished, e.g. "Salió del
escenario una vez hubo cantado tres temas" (she left the
stage right after she had sung three songs). Combining
the 'had ...ed' and 'was ...ing' kinds, you get "había
estado cantando" (she had been singing) vs. "hubo estado
cantando" ([once] she had been singing), the latter
appearing in a few rare contexts, such as "Una vez hubo
estado cantando durante dos horas, decidió descansar
la voz durante un rato" (once she had been singing for
two hours, she decided to rest her voice for a while).
In the subjunctive mood, only one basic past tense appears
even though it features two alternative forms with the
same meaning (cantara/cantase); this pair is not due
to the merging of two forms with a previous distinction
analogous to that of the indicative tenses, but from the
evolution of the Latin forms into Spanish, that merged
the pluperfect indicative (amaveram > amara) and
subjunctive (amavissem > amase) forms into an imperfect
subjunctive, the former form for this meaning (amarem >
amare) being reused as future subjunctive which was
lacking in Latin - the former use of the first forms
(amaveram > amara) as pluperfect indicative is retained
is some dialects along with the new standard use.

Cheers,
Javier