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Continuous and progressive aspects

The continuous and progressive aspects (abbreviated CONT and PROG) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.

Not to be confused with Continuative aspect.

In the grammars of many languages the two terms are used interchangeably. This is also the case with English: a construction such as "He is washing" may be described either as present continuous or as present progressive. However, there are certain languages for which two different aspects are distinguished. In Chinese, for example, progressive aspect denotes a current action, as in "he is getting dressed", while continuous aspect denotes a current state, as in "he is wearing fine clothes".


As with other grammatical categories, the precise semantics of the aspects vary from language to language, and from grammarian to grammarian. For example, some grammars of Turkish count the -iyor form as a present tense;[1] some as a progressive tense;[2] and some as both a continuous (nonhabitual imperfective) and a progressive (continuous non-stative) aspect.[3]

The first is using the form er ved + infinitive ("is at" meaning "in the process of"). For instance han er ved at bygge nyt hus ("he is at to build new house") meaning "he is building a new house". This is similar to the German form using "beim".

Some verbs are always or default continuous, for instance verbs indicating motion, location or position, such as sidder ("sitting"), står ("standing"), ligger ("lying") or går ("walking"). This means their present tense forms are their continuous forms: Han står dér ("he stands there") means "he is standing over there", and jeg sidder ned ("I sit down"), means "I am sitting". Note this means Danish often has two different forms of simple verbs when they make sense both continuous and non-continuous – English has only one such fully functional pair remaining, and it happens to share this one with Danish at lægge (sig) ("to lay") and at ligge ("to lie") – "Lay down so you can lie down".

Using these default continuous verbs together with a non-default continuous verb makes both continuous. This is a form also used in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian and Dutch. For instance: Han står og ryger ("he stands and smokes") means "he is smoking (while standing)".

Another form is used for motions such as walking, driving or flying. When constructing perfect tense they can be constructed with either 'is' or 'has'. Where 'has' indicates a completed travel, and 'is' indicates a started journey. For instance han er gået ("he is walked") meaning "he has left (on foot)", versus jeg har fløjet meaning "I have flown (at some point in time)".

Frequentative

Grammatical aspect

Imperfective aspect

Grammar of the Breton language

and Yip, Virginia (1994). Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-08945-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Matthews, Stephen

Yip, Po-Ching; Rimmington, Don (2004). Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge.  0-415-15032-9.

ISBN

The Present Progressives in the European Parliament Proceedings

Resources to learn verbal aspects for Russian language