5. Verb Phrase: Aspect and Tense
Aspect
Aspect in English
There are two aspectual contrasts in English:
Aspect 1
(perfective / imperfective) - conveys the semantic distinction between anteriority and
simultaneity of two events (this is its the primary meaning, other meanings are also possible)
Aspect 2
(progressive/nonprogressive) - expresses the distinction between the speaker's viewing a
given action in its duration or without the focus on the course of the action.
Morphology of aspect:
The aspectual oppositions are realised by means of constant grammatical markers for each type of aspect:
Unmarked form: I write.
Progressive: I am writing.
Perfective: I have written.
The unmarked forms are basically neutral with respect to aspectual meaning.
Aspect in Polish:
There is nothing that can be compared to English Aspect 1 and 2.
The Polish aspectual forms of verbs distinguish various types of the same activity.
The main semantic factors determining the aspectual oppositions are:
- completed vs. non-completed action;
- one occurrence vs. repeated occurrence of the same action;
- short activity vs. long activity;
- stress on the initial or final phase of the activity.
Morphology of aspect:
There are no unmarked and neutral forms in Polish.
There is only one type of aspectual opposition -- perfective/imperfective. With a few exceptions each Polish
verb is either perfective or imperfective.
In Polish the aspectual distinctions are realised on the lexical level by means such as:
- prefixation
- suffixation
- suppletion
What is more, the prefixes used as markers of perfectivity are also used as word-forming prefixes giving the
verb a new lexical meaning.
As a result, the same imperfective verb can have more than one perfective counterpart depending on the type
of prefix:
Imperfective: czytać
Perfective: przeczytać (pure perfective), odczytać, doczytać, wyczytać, poczytać
All this makes the adequate description of Polish aspect a difficult task because
(i)
there is a great variety of markers of aspect
(ii)
there is a great variety of semantic values of the aspectual oppositions
Prefixation and suffixation are the basic means of forming perfective and imperfective forms:
suffixation: dać – dawać, rzucić – rzucać, nazwać - nazywać
prefixation: pisać – napisać, robić – zrobić, czytać – przeczytać
suppletion: oglądać – obejrzeć, kłaść – położyć, brać - wziąć
prefixation + suffixation: stawiać – postawić, kłaniać się - ukłonić się
- there are verbs which have the same form for both perfective and imperfective (e.g. mianować,
ofiarować, aresztować, imitować, rzutować, etc.)
-1-
-
there are verbs which occur in only one form and with imperfective meaning only (imperfectiva tantum)
(e.g. obowiązywać, polegać, rozmawiać, uczęszczać, sąsiadować, etc.) or with perfective meaning only
(perfectiva tantum) (e.g. owdowieć, oniemieć, osłupieć, etc.).
To sum up the differences:
- there are two aspects in English expressed by transparent morphology;
- there is one aspectual contrast in Polish with a variety of meanings + prefixes having additional lexical
meanings
- Polish has no forms neutral with respect to aspect
Tenses
Tense is a grammatical counterpart of the semantic notion of time.
Semantically speaking, there are two tenses in English: Present -- grammatically unmarked, and Past -marked by -ed for regular verbs or change of the base form for irregular verbs.
The future is expressed by the use of the auxiliaries shall/will and the markers of the future shall/will are at
the same time modal auxiliaries, and apart from the meaning of the future they also carry the meaning of
modality (volition, prediction, promise).
In the Polish language we may safely say that there are three tenses corresponding to the present time, past
time, and the future.
Future can be periphrastic in Polish as well (i.e. it is not a simple verb form but a cluster of an auxiliary and
a verb form) e.g. będę chodził, but the auxiliary być does not have any modal meaning and it only expresses
the future meaning.
Forms of Polish tense forms:
 The Present Tense is unmarked, and only imperfective verbs have the present tense (e.g. pisać/napisać:
piszę/*napisuję; dać/dawać: daję/*dawam, etc.)
 The Future tense of imperfective verbs consists of the auxiliary być in the future tense and either the
infinitive or the past participle. The two forms are in free variation (some speakers favour one over the
other).
The Future Tense of perfective verbs is formed on the basis of the present tense base of perfective
verbs. It has the same inflectional endings as the Present Tense of imperfective verbs.
 The Past Tense of both perfective and imperfective verbs is formed on the basis of the past participle
form to which the inflectional endings are added.
Imperfective pisać
piszę
piszesz
pisze
piszemy
piszecie
piszą
Future
będę pisał/a ‖ pisać
tense
będziesz pisał/ła ‖ pisać
będzie pisał/a/o ‖ pisać
będziemy pisali/ły ‖ pisać
będziecie pisali/ły ‖ pisać
będą pisali/ły ‖ pisać
Past Tense pisałem/am
pisałeś/aś
pisał/ła/ło
pisaliśmy/łyśmy
pisaliście/łyście
pisali/ły
Present
tense
Perfective napisać
-------------
napiszę
napiszesz
napisze
napiszemy
napiszecie
napiszą
napisałem/am
napisałeś/aś
napisał/ła/ło
napisaliśmy/łyśmy
napisaliście/łyście
napisali/ły
-2-