English
English is an example of a language with no general imperfective. The English progressive is used to describe ongoing events such as "The rain was beating down". Habitual situations do not have their own verb form, but the construction "used to" conveys past habitual action, as in "I used to ski". Unlike in languages with a general imperfective, in English the simple past tense can be used for situations presented as ongoing, such as "The rain beat down continuously through the night".
Read more about this topic: Imperfective Aspect
Famous quotes containing the word english:
“A poor beauty finds more lovers than husbands.”
—Seventeenth-century English proverb, collected in Outlandish Proverbs, George Herbert (1640)
“The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“What else has been English news for so long a season? What else, of late years, has been England to us,—to us who read books, we mean?... Carlyle alone, since the death of Coleridge, has kept the promise of England. It is the best apology for all the bustle and the sin of commerce, that it has made us acquainted with the thoughts of this man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)