Click here to listen to ‘The perfectly imperfect aspect episode’
When we're talking about an activity -- say, throwing teacups in a lake -- we often want to know not just when the action takes place, but also what shape that action looks like. Is this a one-time teacup throwing event (I threw the teacup in the lake) or a repeated or ongoing situation (I was throwing the teacup in the lake)? Both of these actions might have happened at the same time (they're both in the past tense), but this different in shape between them is known as aspect.
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about aspect. We talk about the important aspects of aspect: the most common aspectual meaning across languages (whether an action is completed or not) and the most common ways of forming aspects (repeating some or all of the word, or else grabbing something from somewhere else in the grammar), as well as why English aspect in the present tense went weird a couple centuries ago (Shakespeare could say "I go, my lord" but these days we're far more likely to say "I'm going"). We also talk about our favourite fun aspects of aspect: why there isn't a Thursdititive aspect even though it would be super useful for a certain linguistics podcast (ahem!), the secret etymological frequentative aspect that's hiding in plain sight in English, and the real historical teacup-lake-throwing controversy that could have been solved with more precise use of aspect.
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.
Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about ways of comparing things to each other! We talk about why comparisons get weird when the groups are too large or too small, the hidden etymological connection between more and most, how we choose between er/est and more/most (and why "funner" is really more logical), and how English has more ways of making comparatives than many other languages. We also talk about strategies that other languages use for making comparatives, and why some words are harder to make comparative.
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Here are the links mentioned in the episode:
Lingthusiasm episode 'This time it gets tense - The grammar of time'
'The times of our signs: aspect and aspectual markers in American sign language' by Timothy Reagan
'The Signs of Language' by Edward S. Klima and Ursula Bellugi
'During WWII, Bletchley Park Was Home to Codebreaking and Tea Shenanigans' on Atlas Obscurer
The offical Bletchley Park Instagram account post about the teacups
Wikipedia entry for 'African American Vernacular English tense and aspect'
'African American English: A Linguistic Introduction' by Lisa J. Green
Yale Grammatical Diversity Project English in North America entry for 'Invariant be'
WALS entry for 'Feature 65A: Perfective/Imperfective Aspect'
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Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com
Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
Here’s the link again to ‘The perfectly imperfect aspect episode’
Thanks for listening, and stay Lingthusiastic!
Lauren & Gretchen