Continuous and Progressive Aspects

Continuous And Progressive Aspects

The continuous and progressive aspects (abbreviated CONT and PROG) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects. It is a verb category with two principal meaning components: (limited) duration and (possible) incompletion. Most languages treat continuous and progressive aspects as alike and use the two terms interchangeably, but there are languages that distinguish them.

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; some as a progressive tense; and some as both a continuous (nonhabitual imperfective) and a progressive (continuous non-stative) aspect.

Read more about Continuous And Progressive Aspects:  Continuous Versus Progressive, Continuous and Progressive in Various Languages

Famous quotes containing the words continuous, progressive and/or aspects:

    The gap between ideals and actualities, between dreams and achievements, the gap that can spur strong men to increased exertions, but can break the spirit of others—this gap is the most conspicuous, continuous land mark in American history. It is conspicuous and continuous not because Americans achieve little, but because they dream grandly. The gap is a standing reproach to Americans; but it marks them off as a special and singularly admirable community among the world’s peoples.
    George F. Will (b. 1941)

    A radical is one of whom people say “He goes too far.” A conservative, on the other hand, is one who “doesn’t go far enough.” Then there is the reactionary, “one who doesn’t go at all.” All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term “progressive.” I should say that a progressive is one who insists upon recognizing new facts as they present themselves—one who adjusts legislation to these new facts.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    ... of all the aspects of social misery nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment ...
    Jane Addams (1860–1935)