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Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems
An introduction to the general linguistic study of aspect. Topics covered include the relation of tense and aspect, the morphology and the semantics of aspect, and structuralist and philosophical approaches. Dr. Comrie draws his examples particularly from English and the Slavonic and Romance languages, but also from Arabic, Chinese, Welsh, Greek and a variety of others. This is the first study of aspect, considered as a general linguistic phenomenon. It is intended for students of individual languages as well as for students of linguistics.
151 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 5, 2023
How do you characterize time? What is significant when describing how, to what degree of completion, or how many times one does something? And what happens if you do it the way that speakers of language X do? Along with _Basic Color Terms_, this book points out some of the wonder that can be found in linguistics and language.
June 5, 2026
I got here by reading Kieran Setiya’s work on doxastic voluntarism or the question of whether we can believe at will, and if so, what “at will” entails. Setiya argues that Pamela Hieronymi is wrong to think that, in principle, we cannot, or that any practical considerations that inform our actions could bear upon which beliefs we form. Setiya’s critique proceeds by pointing to that Hieronymi assumes that either believing P, adopting a belief P, or intending to form a belief P must consist in a state, rather than a process or event. With this conception of belief, Hieronymi suggests that the possibility space for making sense of whether we can believe at will consists in the binary of that practical considerations are at play (and these are non-overlapping with epistemic considerations), or epistemic considerations are. (I didn’t quite follow his argument for why, when conceptualized as a state, the two types of considerations cannot bear on one and the same belief state. Is it because of the intuition that if we know that we’re accepting some view because it is desirable, this is just incompatible with that the acceptance of the view could be essentially determined by epistemic considerations, which is arguably essential to belief?)
Setiya points out, in contrast, that there could be mental processes involved in forming a belief that could be driven by practical considerations—it is just that we can’t believe P by self-knowingly flaunting any epistemic considerations of truth. In other words, by thinking of believing P as a mental process or event, we’re able to get to a possibility space that is not binary like Hieronymi’s. Practical and epistemic considerations alike can bear on the belief one comes to form because, as a process, we don’t have to think of these considerations that bear on a process as operating as deliverable or conscious reasons that one follows. Rather, they could bear on the process through other roles or means.
Setiya cites Comrie’s work on aspect to get his distinction between states and processes/events off the ground. I was keen on looking further into this distinction; it has haunted me for a while now, since I read Matthew Soteriou’s work a couple of years ago. I had first encountered this distinction in Soteriou’s work, and didn’t realize that Setiya uses it, too.
It was really interesting to read Comrie. I’m not sure whether understanding his work has any immediate philosophical implications, but at least it’s general food for thought that his work, historically, informs Setiya’s use of the distinction.
Let me get into the Comrie. His theory is presented in chapters 1-4, and the rest consist in applications and implications of it. “Aspect” in linguistics concerns how certain verbs (or formulations that can be conjoined with verbs) have implications for how the situation that is described by use of such a verb “fills in time,” or how it is presented temporally. For example, when I say “He was cooking when I entered the kitchen,” the first verb presents his activity “from the perspective” of an internal portion of his activity. His cooking is suggested to be an activity with a beginning and end, and the use of the progressive form of the verb “cook,” i.e., “cooking,” presents a snapshot of his activity as it is ongoing. In contrast, the second verb “entered” presents the totality of the relevant situation, without any reference to its internal temporal structure. It presents how I’ve entered the kitchen, as a completed event, and does not present any moment that could’ve happened during the temporal interval it took for me to fully enter.
The second verb, then, instantiates the “perfective” aspect, while the first verb instantiates the “imperfective” aspect (I might be talking about aspect in an awkward way here; I’m not so familiar with this area and am not sure if I can use “instantiating an aspect” like this). To generalize, the perfective presents the situation (e.g., an activity, event, state of affairs) “from the outside,” while the imperfective presents it “from the inside.” One and the same event could be presented under either aspect even within the same sentence, like “He cooked dinner yesterday, and while he was cooking, I came into the kitchen.”
So, aspect is concerned with time, just as tense is. But tense is concerned with time in a very different way. Tense is “deictic” (I think this has a similar meaning to “indexical,” or that facts about the context of use of the term as essential to supplying the meaning that term has when so used) and locates situations in time. In contrast, aspect is concerned with the temporal structure of a given situation, and so is not indexical.
Comrie ultimately uses linguistic observations about aspect (and its relation to related linguistic notions like the progressive form of verbs, the telic (as opposed to atelic) nature of relevant verbs, durative v punctual forms of situations, and the perfect v imperfect) to make a sort of metaphysical proposal about states v dynamic situations. A static situation can involve change, but that requires that something happens to change the state. If nothing happens to it, the situation will continue. In contrast, a dynamic situation can not change, but in order for that to be the case, it must be continuously subject to new inputs of energy that keep it from changing.
In general, it was delightful to learn how differences in grammar can have differences in meaning in examples like the following. Here are a smattering of examples. Consider: (1) “I live at G. Street” vs. “I’m living at G. Street.” The use of the progressive form of the verb in the latter implies a more temporary state than the use of the finite form of the verb in the former sentence, (2) We use “used to,” which precedes some description, to raise a certain paradigmatic feature of a situation that is located in the past. For example, “he used to throw stones at my window at night” would be inappropriate if he only ever did this a few times, whereas it would be appropriate if he did this enough times that this act were characteristic of the time period that is implicitly raised, (3) In English, whenever we say “he was dying,” it is inappropriate to use this to refer to a series of events that do not ultimate culminate into dying, so “die” refers to a punctional situation, even then the progressive form of this verb is permissible and might give the illusion of the it could refer to a durative situation, and (4) The present perfect is only one of the possible tenses of the perfect aspect, and should not be identified with this aspect. Rather, the present perfect essentially expresses a relation between a present state and a past situation. Consider the following sentence: “I’ve lost my pencil” and “I entered the kitchen.” The latter does not involve the present perfect insofar as it does not raise a relation between two points in time.
A satisfying aspect of reading Comrie is that, as a linguist, it at least felt like I could trust his distinctions like absolute facts. I imagine that the pleasure in apparently learning these facts is not dissimilar from the pleasure in learning scientific facts. Doing philosophy typically cannot come with this pleasure; typically all claims are disputable, or at least welcome dispute.
Setiya points out, in contrast, that there could be mental processes involved in forming a belief that could be driven by practical considerations—it is just that we can’t believe P by self-knowingly flaunting any epistemic considerations of truth. In other words, by thinking of believing P as a mental process or event, we’re able to get to a possibility space that is not binary like Hieronymi’s. Practical and epistemic considerations alike can bear on the belief one comes to form because, as a process, we don’t have to think of these considerations that bear on a process as operating as deliverable or conscious reasons that one follows. Rather, they could bear on the process through other roles or means.
Setiya cites Comrie’s work on aspect to get his distinction between states and processes/events off the ground. I was keen on looking further into this distinction; it has haunted me for a while now, since I read Matthew Soteriou’s work a couple of years ago. I had first encountered this distinction in Soteriou’s work, and didn’t realize that Setiya uses it, too.
It was really interesting to read Comrie. I’m not sure whether understanding his work has any immediate philosophical implications, but at least it’s general food for thought that his work, historically, informs Setiya’s use of the distinction.
Let me get into the Comrie. His theory is presented in chapters 1-4, and the rest consist in applications and implications of it. “Aspect” in linguistics concerns how certain verbs (or formulations that can be conjoined with verbs) have implications for how the situation that is described by use of such a verb “fills in time,” or how it is presented temporally. For example, when I say “He was cooking when I entered the kitchen,” the first verb presents his activity “from the perspective” of an internal portion of his activity. His cooking is suggested to be an activity with a beginning and end, and the use of the progressive form of the verb “cook,” i.e., “cooking,” presents a snapshot of his activity as it is ongoing. In contrast, the second verb “entered” presents the totality of the relevant situation, without any reference to its internal temporal structure. It presents how I’ve entered the kitchen, as a completed event, and does not present any moment that could’ve happened during the temporal interval it took for me to fully enter.
The second verb, then, instantiates the “perfective” aspect, while the first verb instantiates the “imperfective” aspect (I might be talking about aspect in an awkward way here; I’m not so familiar with this area and am not sure if I can use “instantiating an aspect” like this). To generalize, the perfective presents the situation (e.g., an activity, event, state of affairs) “from the outside,” while the imperfective presents it “from the inside.” One and the same event could be presented under either aspect even within the same sentence, like “He cooked dinner yesterday, and while he was cooking, I came into the kitchen.”
So, aspect is concerned with time, just as tense is. But tense is concerned with time in a very different way. Tense is “deictic” (I think this has a similar meaning to “indexical,” or that facts about the context of use of the term as essential to supplying the meaning that term has when so used) and locates situations in time. In contrast, aspect is concerned with the temporal structure of a given situation, and so is not indexical.
Comrie ultimately uses linguistic observations about aspect (and its relation to related linguistic notions like the progressive form of verbs, the telic (as opposed to atelic) nature of relevant verbs, durative v punctual forms of situations, and the perfect v imperfect) to make a sort of metaphysical proposal about states v dynamic situations. A static situation can involve change, but that requires that something happens to change the state. If nothing happens to it, the situation will continue. In contrast, a dynamic situation can not change, but in order for that to be the case, it must be continuously subject to new inputs of energy that keep it from changing.
In general, it was delightful to learn how differences in grammar can have differences in meaning in examples like the following. Here are a smattering of examples. Consider: (1) “I live at G. Street” vs. “I’m living at G. Street.” The use of the progressive form of the verb in the latter implies a more temporary state than the use of the finite form of the verb in the former sentence, (2) We use “used to,” which precedes some description, to raise a certain paradigmatic feature of a situation that is located in the past. For example, “he used to throw stones at my window at night” would be inappropriate if he only ever did this a few times, whereas it would be appropriate if he did this enough times that this act were characteristic of the time period that is implicitly raised, (3) In English, whenever we say “he was dying,” it is inappropriate to use this to refer to a series of events that do not ultimate culminate into dying, so “die” refers to a punctional situation, even then the progressive form of this verb is permissible and might give the illusion of the it could refer to a durative situation, and (4) The present perfect is only one of the possible tenses of the perfect aspect, and should not be identified with this aspect. Rather, the present perfect essentially expresses a relation between a present state and a past situation. Consider the following sentence: “I’ve lost my pencil” and “I entered the kitchen.” The latter does not involve the present perfect insofar as it does not raise a relation between two points in time.
A satisfying aspect of reading Comrie is that, as a linguist, it at least felt like I could trust his distinctions like absolute facts. I imagine that the pleasure in apparently learning these facts is not dissimilar from the pleasure in learning scientific facts. Doing philosophy typically cannot come with this pleasure; typically all claims are disputable, or at least welcome dispute.
October 24, 2013
This is the kind of book you should read in one go, not where you take a 2 month break in the middle. It's a quick read, but I do feel it kind of falls in-between two chairs. It's not a simple introduction to aspect, but it's not an extremely detailed account either. That's pretty obvious: you can't introduce aspect cross-linguistically properly in 140 pages.
Still, it's a very good book. Moreso if you are a Slavicist. Without any knowledge of Slavic languages, which often make out the key examples and present the most interesting aspectual systems, a lot of the information may be somewhat irrelevant and/or difficult to grasp (especially the mace that is Bulgarian), and it could be a better idea to read a book that focuses on your linguistic area of interest. However, for a Slavicist, it's great, because it gives you a lot of good information on *tadaa* Russian, Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic in particular, all the while contrasting them with, notably, Georgian, Ancient and Modern Greek, English and Romance languages.
Still, it's a very good book. Moreso if you are a Slavicist. Without any knowledge of Slavic languages, which often make out the key examples and present the most interesting aspectual systems, a lot of the information may be somewhat irrelevant and/or difficult to grasp (especially the mace that is Bulgarian), and it could be a better idea to read a book that focuses on your linguistic area of interest. However, for a Slavicist, it's great, because it gives you a lot of good information on *tadaa* Russian, Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic in particular, all the while contrasting them with, notably, Georgian, Ancient and Modern Greek, English and Romance languages.
September 1, 2016
Die ersten 3 Kapitel sind noch interessant, da gibt es viele englische Beispiele und vieles ist für Anglistik noch relevant. Ab Kapitel 4 kann man querlesen, denn wer kein Russisch, Serbokroatisch, Italienisch, Spanisch oder Altgriechisch kann, kann mit den Beispielen halt gar nichts anfangen. Und wer diese Sprachen spricht kann sie möglicherweise nicht lesen, weil Russisch z. Bsp. irgendwie seltsam transkribiert ist.
Ja, ein Klassiker, der Aspekte als Prinzip einführt. Insgesamt aber sehr theoretisch nur auf das Prinzip des Aspekts fixiert und eher nicht für Anglisten.
Ja, ein Klassiker, der Aspekte als Prinzip einführt. Insgesamt aber sehr theoretisch nur auf das Prinzip des Aspekts fixiert und eher nicht für Anglisten.
Want to Read
June 8, 2021I want to read this book
September 7, 2009
Aspect has always been something hard to grasp for me, I never fully understood the concept of it and the distinction between the various types of aspect. I hoped to be able to understand it after reading a standard work on it. Unfortunately I still don't quite get it. This might not be this book's fault, though... As expected it was very thorough and detailed and illuminated every aspect of, well, aspect. However, real glosses were missing. I'm not sure why I didn't like it too much; can't really name any flaws, but since I don't feel much wiser now, I can't say that it helped me very much.
January 19, 2021
Wonderful book that is a good introduction to the topic of Aspect in linguistics. It is filled with examples to guide the intuition as some of the definitions can be a bit wordy and difficult to follow. Very good read.
January 10, 2008
This is an excellent introduction to verbal aspect in general. I wish the examples were better glossed, though.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews