AspectProgressive

AspectProgressive is a linguistic term used to label a grammatical feature that encodes ongoing or in-progress events relative to a reference time. As a type of imperfective aspect, it foregrounds duration and continuity rather than completion. In descriptive grammars, AspectProgressive is often analyzed as a functional category that interacts with tense and mood and is frequently realized through periphrastic constructions or inflectional markers, depending on the language.

Formation and realization vary across languages. In English, progressive forms are typically built with an auxiliary be plus the present participle (am walking). In many languages, progressive meaning is conveyed by periphrastic constructions with auxiliaries and participles or by dedicated verbal markers. Some languages have synthetic progressive morphemes, while others rely on context or aspectual particles to signal ongoing action. Although the specific form differs, the core function remains to indicate an event in progress at or around the reference time.

Typology and cross-linguistic variation show that AspectProgressive is widely attested, but its grammatical realization is diverse. Some languages possess a distinct progressive morpheme or auxiliary, while others express it through a more general imperfective system or through discourse-based interpretation. In certain analyses, it is treated as a subcategory of imperfective rather than a separate category, whereas others treat it as a separate feature for cross-linguistic comparison.

In computational linguistics, AspectProgressive is used as a feature in grammar formalisms and annotation schemes to tag ongoing actions. It may be encoded as a discrete value within an aspect or tense system, facilitating cross-language parsing and corpus annotation. See also: aspect, progressive, imperfective, tense.