Imperfective Aspect - Other Languages

Other Languages

Slavic languages are examples of languages with verbs that have perfective and/or an imperfective form. Imperfectives can be turned into perfectives with any of various prefixes. Perfectives can be turned into imperfectives with a suffix. The non-past imperfective form is used for the present, while its perfective counterpart is used for the future. There is also a periphrastic imperfective future construction.

The imperfective aspect may be fused with the past tense, for a form traditionally called the imperfect. In some cases, such as Spanish, Portuguese and Modern Greek, this is because the imperfective aspect only occurs in the past tense; others, such as Georgian and Bulgarian, have both general imperfectives and imperfects. Other languages with distinct past imperfectives include Latin and Persian.