grammatical aspect

Definitions

The aspect of a verb phrase (verb group) or other predicate – its temporal structure or relationship to the time of use – marked through any of various grammatical elements, as distinguished from lexical aspect.

Equivalents

Examples

“While lexical aspect presents information about the inherent lexical properties of the verb and verb phrase, grammatical aspect, on the other hand, signals the boundaries of an event.”

“Within the framework of a distinction between grammatical and lexical aspect, the category grammatical aspect, which is usually realized in the morphology of the verb, includes the imperfective and the perfective aspect, whereas the lexical aspect concerns the situation types (Aktionsarten) of the verb, i.e. it is inherent to the semantics of the verb.”

CEFR level