Perfect aspect
The perfective aspect - often also called the perfective aspect or simply perfect - is a verbal aspect that marks actions, states and events as complete, unique, manageable and self-contained. In contrast, there is the imperfective aspect .
Occasionally, the term is (incorrectly) used to define a form within the types of action . Actually, “terminative verbs” are identified under “perfective verbs” from the point of view of the classification of the action type. H. an event is considered to be limited in time and completed.
Individual language
Indo-European languages
The Germanic languages once had an imperfect-perfect system. In Old High German, for example, there was the prefix gi-, the forerunner of the ge -participle prefix. It expressed the perfective aspect of verbs and was only later reinterpreted into an obligatory morpheme . In a case like made expressed overall thus originally the completed action, but occurs today as a compulsory part of the participle II. Verbs such as will come, see, that are already here perfective of their importance, so were never in the past participle with an additional overall provided - a state that has survived to this day in many German dialects. In dialects of New High German (e.g. Rhenish), double perfect formations, as Michael Stich had already won at Wimbledon , can be interpreted as reinforcing the perfect aspect (cf. Rödel 2007). In English , the simple past is used when the action is completed in the past.
The Romance languages divide the past tense into two forms, with the perfective aspect in Spanish being denoted by the indefinido de indicativo , in French by the passé simple , in Italian by the passato remoto and in Romanian by the perfect simplu or preterit .
For the Russian Comrie (1996) cites the sentence: On umiral (i.e. imperfect), no ne umer (di perfective), with the following translation: “He was dying” (imperfect), “died” (perfective) “but not . "
It is believed that the aorist in the Indo-European original language only expressed the perfective aspect , but was associated with the temporal meaning early on. Similar to Greek, the aorist in Sanskrit was originally a time and aspect category. The differences in meaning between the past tenses of Sanskrit faded early on.
Ural languages
In Hungarian , the perfective aspect is expressed by the verbal prefix meg- . This is the most common verbal prefix in the Hungarian language. Examples:
- meg talál - to find (after searching)
- meg szólal - begin to speak (the perfective expresses the beginning of an action; szólal means to speak )
Sino-Tibetan languages
In the Chinese language , 了le is used to indicate that an action is complete.
literature
- Bernard Comrie: Language and Languages. Universals and Typology. In: Lang / Zifonun (Ed.): German typologically. Berlin / New York 1996.
- Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. Stuttgart / Weimar 2005.
- Michael Rödel: Double perfect formations and the organization of Tempus in German. Tuebingen 2007.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pretérito indefinido (Gramática, 1931) also as Pretérito perfecto simple (Esbozo, 1973) or Pretérito absoluto , it is also called the historical perfect, as well as Pasado simple .