12)Aspect.

The aspective meaning of the V., as different from its temporal meaning, reflects the inherent mode of the realisation of the process irrespective of its timing.the aspective meaning can be in-built in the semantic structure of the V., forming an invariable, derivative cat. . In English, the various lexical aspective meanings have been generalised by the V. in its subclass division into limitive and unlimitive sets. On the other hand, the aspective meaning can also be represented in variable gram. categories. Two systems of Verbal forms should be evaluated in this light: the cont. forms and the perf. forms.The aspective or non-aspective identification of the forms in question will, in the long run, be dependent on whether or not they express the direct, immediate time of the action denoted by the V., since a general connection between the aspective and temporal Verbal semantics is indisputable.

The cont. forms are aspective because, reflecting the inherent character of the process performed by the V., they cannot denote the timing of the process. The opp. constituting the corresponding cat. is effected between the cont. and the non-cont. (indefinite) Verbal forms. The cat. mean. is "development". The perf., as different from the cont., does reflect a kind of timing, though in a purely relative way. It coordinates two times, locating one of them in retrospect towards the other. The true nature of the perf. is temporal aspect reflected in its own opp., which cannot be reduced to any other opp. of the otherwise recognised Verbal categories. The suggested name for this cat. is "retrospective coordination", or, contractedly, "retrospect". The categorial member opposed to the perf., for the sake of terminological consistency, will be named "imperf." (non-perf.).The forms of the cont. and the perf. can freely coexist in one and the same syntagmatic manifestation of the V., we have to infer that they enter (in the capacity of opp.al markers) essentially different categories, though related to each other by their general aspective character.

The aspective cat. of development is constituted by the opp. of the cont. forms of the V. to the non-cont., or indefinite forms of the V.. The marked member of the opp. is the cont., which is built up by the auxiliary be plus the Pr. participle of the conjugated V.. In symbolic notation it is represented by the formula be...ing. The cat. mean. of the cont. is "action in progress"; the unmarked member of the opp., the indefinite, leaves this meaning unspecified, i.e. expresses the non-cont.The traditional analysis placed them among the tense-forms of the V., defining them as expressing an action going on simultaneously with some other action. ( H. Sweet and O. Jespersen). In point of fact, the cont. usually goes with a V. which expresses a simultaneous action.The correlation of the cont. with contextual indications of time is well illustrated on examples of complex sentences with while-clauses. Four combinations of the cont. and the indefinite are possible in principle in these constructions and all the four possibilities are realised in contexts of Modern English. Cf.:While I was typing, Mary and Tom were chatting in the adjoining room. While I typed, Mary and Tom were chatting in the adjoining room. While I was typing, they chatted in the adjoining room. While I typed, they chatted in the adjoining room.The time is shown by their tense-signals of the past (the past form of the auxiliary be in the cont., or the suffix -{e)d in the indefinite). The meaningful difference consists exactly in the categorial semantics of the indefinite and cont.: while the latter shows the action in the very process of its realisation, the former points it out as a mere fact. On the other hand, the cont. is usually employed in descriptions of scenes correlating a number of actions going on simultaneously — since all of them are actually shown in progress, at the time implied by the narration. Cf.:The priest was standing, and those who were left were kneeling in a half circle around him and they were all praying. But if the actions are not progressive by themselves (i.e. if they are not shown as progressive), the description, naturally, will go without the cont. forms of the corresponding Verbs. E. g.:

Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, and a long sallow hospital. At the 2nd stage of the interpretation of the cont., the form was understood as rendering a blend of temporal and aspective meanings — the same as the other forms of the V. obliquely connected with the factor of time, i.e. the indefinite and the perf.. ( I. P. Ivanova).

The combined temporal-aspective interpretation of the cont., in general, should be appraised as an essential step forward, because, 1st, it introduced on an explicit, comprehensively grounded basis the idea of aspective meanings in the gram. system of English; 2nd, it demonstrated the actual connection of time and aspect in the integral categorial semantics of the V.. In fact, it presented a thesis that proved to be crucial for the subsequent demonstration, at the next stage of analysis, of the essence of the form on a strictly oppositional foundation.

This latter phase of study, initiated in the works of A. I.Smirnitsky, V. N. Yartseva and B. A. Ilyish, was developed further by B. S. Khaimovich and B. I. Rogovskaya and exposed in its most comprehensive form by L. S. Barkhudarov.The cat. of development, unlike the categories of person, number, and time, has a V.id representation, namely, it is represented in the inf.. This fact, for its part, testifies to another than temporal nature of the cont..

With the inf., the cat. of development, naturally, expresses the same meaningful contrast between action in progress and action not in progress as with the finite forms of the V.. Cf.:Kezia and her grandmother were taking their siesta together. It was but natural for Kezia and her grandmother to be taking their siesta together. What are you complaining about?——Is there really anything for you to be complaining about?But in addition to this purely categorial distinction, the form of the cont. inf. has a tendency to acquire quite a special meaning in combination with modal Verbs, namely that of probability.The cat. of retrospective coordination (retrospect) is constituted by the opp. of the perf. forms of the V. to the non-perf., or imperf. forms. The marked member of the opp. is the perf., which is built up by the auxiliary have in combination with the past participle of the conjugated V.. In symbolic notation it is expressed by the formula have ... en.The functional meaning of the cat. has been interpreted in linguistic literature in four different ways, each contributing to the evolution of the general theory of retrospective coordination."tense view"(H. Sweet, G. Curme, M. Bryant and J. R. Aiken, N. F. Irtenyeva, M. A. Ganshina and N. M. Vasilevskaya).The difference between the perf. and non-perf. forms of the V., according to the tense interpretation of the perf., consists in the fact that the perf. denotes a 2ndary temporal characteristic of the action- it shows that the denoted action precedes some other action or situation in the Pr., past, or F.. "aspect view": (M. Deutschbein, E.A. Sonnenschein, A. S. West, G. N. Vorontsova)They demonstrated the idea of the successive connection of two events expressed by the perf., prominence given by the form to the transference of a pre-situation to a post-situation. the resultative meaning ascribed by some scholars to the perf. as its determining gram. function is understood within a more general destination of this form, namely as a particular manifestation of its transmissive functional semantics.The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever.

The resultative implication of the perf. in the example can be graphically shown by the diagnostic transformation: → The sun burns more fiercely than ever as a result of the wind having dropped.“tense-aspect blend view"; in accord with this interpretation the perf. is recognised as a form of double temporal-aspective character, similar to the cont.. ( I. P. Ivanova). the two Verbal forms expressing temporal and aspective functions in a blend are contrasted against the indefinite form as their common counterpart of neutralised aspective properties."time correlation view"( Smirnitsky). The functional content of the cat. of "time correlation" («временная отнесенность») was defined as priority expressed by the perf. forms in the Pr., past or F. contrasted against the non-expression of priority by the non-perf. forms. The immediate factor was the peculiar structure of the perf. cont. form in which the perf., the form of precedence, i.e. the form giving prominence to the idea of two times brought in contrast, coexists syntagmatically with the cont., the form of simultaneity, i.e. the form expressing one time for two events, according to the "tense view" conception of it. "strict categorial view" of the perf., disclosing it as the marking form of a separate Verbal cat. , semantically intermediate between aspective and temporal, but quite self-dependent in the general categorial system of the English V.. It is this interpretation of the perf. that gives a natural explanation to the "enigmatic" Verbal form of the perf. cont., showing that each categorial marker — both perf. and cont. — being separately expressed in the speech entry of the Verbal lexeme, conveys its own part in the integral gram. meaning of the entry. Namely, the perf. interprets the action in the light of priority and aspective transmission, while the cont. Presents the same action as progressive.