Thread: other languages with imperfect/perfect verbs?

Are there any other languages with imperfect/perfect verbs?
thanks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect

Slavic languages have separate lexical entries (that is, different words) for different aspects of verbs.

Most languages use verb morphing (either prefixes, suffixes, or different conjugations) to mark different aspects.

English is a notable exception since it uses neither. Verb aspect is determined contextually, like most things in our crazy language.

Spanish has the preterite/imperfect tenses which are used in a similar fashion, however only in the past tense. None of this stuff where you have two separate verbs for each aspect.

Morphing is spread in many languages. The problem is when a form of the verb is concidered a new separate verb or just a form of the base verb. I think the difference is in a number of special cases vs rules. I.e. when you make a new perfective verb according to some rule in Russian you never really sure if this form does really exist and what does it mean. One should know the very verb, knowing the general rule is not enough.

Originally Posted by sperk

Are there any other languages with imperfect/perfect verbs?thanks

Yes. I believe all the Slavic languages make the distinction (though I don't remember for sure about Lusatian or Slovene). Polish certainly does. The Polish equivalent of the pair давать/дать is dawać/dać. Bulgarian also distinguishes imperfective and perfective, although it doesn't have infinitives, so you don't see it cited as often in fast and dirty comparisons like this one.

Originally Posted by doninphxaz

Bulgarian also distinguishes imperfective and perfective, although it doesn't have infinitives

verbs w/o infinitives, that's interesting...