Aspectual Categories in Navajo

Abstract

Aspect is the semantic domain of temporal point of view in language. The linguistic expressions that a speaker chooses present situations in a particular temporal light. For example, in talking about a bird flying, I may say in English The bird flew The bird was flying, The bird was in flight. The first two sentences present a dynamic event from different viewpoints; the third presents a static situation. These are aspectual distinctions. The domain of aspect includes such categories as perfective and imperfective viewpoint, and situation types such as event and state.