Editing Grammatical aspect (section)

==Common aspectual distinctions==
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2024}}
The most fundamental aspectual distinction, represented in many languages, is between '''perfective''' aspect and '''imperfective''' aspect. This is the basic aspectual distinction in the Slavic languages.

It semantically corresponds to the distinction between the [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphological forms]] known respectively as the [[aorist]] and imperfect in [[Greek language|Greek]], the preterite and imperfect in Spanish, the [[simple past]] ({{lang|fr|passé simple}}) and imperfect in French, and the perfect and imperfect in Latin (from the Latin {{lang|la|perfectus}}, meaning "completed").

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! Language
! Perfective Aspect
! Imperfective Aspect
|-
! Latin
| {{lang|la|Perfect}}
|rowspan=5| Imperfect
|-
! Spanish
| {{lang|es|Pretérito}}
|-
! French
| {{lang|fr|Passé simple}}
|-
! Greek
| {{lang|el-latn|Aorist}}
|-
! Portuguese
| {{lang|pt|Pretérito perfeito}}
|}

Essentially, the perfective aspect looks at an event as a complete action, while the imperfective aspect views an event as the process of unfolding or a repeated or habitual event (thus corresponding to the progressive/continuous aspect for events of short-term duration and to habitual aspect for longer terms).

For events of short durations in the past, the distinction often coincides with the distinction in the English language between the simple past "X-ed," as compared to the progressive "was X-ing".  Compare "I wrote the letters this morning" (i.e. finished writing the letters: an action completed) and "I was writing the letters this morning" (the letters may still be unfinished).

In describing longer time periods, English needs context to maintain the distinction between the habitual ("I called him often in the past" – a habit that has no point of completion) and perfective ("I called him once" – an action completed), although the construct "used to" marks both habitual aspect and past tense and can be used if the aspectual distinction otherwise is not clear.

Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish, {{lang|fr|savoir}} and {{lang|es|saber}}. This is also true when the sense of verb "to know" is "to know somebody", in this case opposed in aspect to the verb "to meet" (or even to the construction "to get to know"). These correspond to imperfect and perfect forms of {{lang|es|conocer}} in Spanish, and {{lang|fr|connaître}} in French. In German, on the other hand, the distinction is also lexical (as in English) through verbs {{lang|de|kennen}} and {{lang|de|kennenlernen}}, although the semantic relation between both forms is much more straightforward since {{lang|de|kennen}} means "to know" and {{lang|de|lernen}} means "to learn".