Re: unmarked tense/aspect

David Peterson ha tera a:
> Estel wrote:
> > The language will distinguish past, present and future tense It
will
> > distinguish at least imperfective, perfective and perfect aspect;
> > imperfective may be divided into progressive and habitual, but I'm
not
> > yet sure.
> You make a distinction between the perfect *and* the perfective? What
> does this mean? And why no distinction between the imperfect and the
> imperfective?
>-David
Aspect terminology is a mess.  Yes, there is a distinction between
perfect and perfective, though I sometimes have difficulty remembering
which is which.
One of them - perfective, I think - looks at an event as a single point
in time, while its counterpart, probably imperfective, looks at the
event as a space of time... or something like that.
The other one - perfect, I think -  looks at an event as having
continuing relevance... or something like that.

Thus, "I sang a song yesterday" looks at an event as a point in time,
and would be perfective

"I was singing" looks at the activity as spanning time, and would be
imperfective, specifically the sub-variety of imperfective known as
progressive.

"I used to sing when I was a kid"  looks at (various instances of) an
activity as spanning time, and would also be imperfective, specifically
the sub-variety of imperfective known as habitual.

"I've sung that song before (and I still remember it)" looks at an
event as having continuing relevance, and would be perfect.

I think I have that right...
-Estel

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