Perifrastische

Perifrastische refers to periphrastic constructions, that is, grammatical forms created by using multiple words rather than a single inflected form to express tense, aspect, mood, voice, or modality. In linguistic usage, periphrasis describes analytic constructions built with auxiliary verbs, participles, or descriptive phrases that substitute for inflectional endings or synthetic forms. Periphrastic devices can also serve rhetorical purposes, using circumlocution to convey a meaning more indirectly.

Common types and functions include:

- Aspect and tense: English present progressive I am reading; present perfect I have eaten, which express ongoing or completed action without a single inflected verb.

- Future: periphrastic futures such as will go or be going to go, or language-specific equivalents, where future time is indicated via auxiliary or periphrastic means.

- Passive voice: The cake was eaten, formed with a form of be plus a past participle, rather than a synthetic passive suffix.

- Negation: Do-support in English (I do not know) is a periphrastic strategy to negate verbs in certain contexts.

- Modality and evidentiality: Constructions like It must have rained or She might be absent use auxiliary or analytic forms to express likelihood or evidence.

Cross-linguistic note: Some languages rely heavily on periphrastic means to encode tense, aspect, mood, or voice, while others rely more on inflection. In German-language linguistics, perifrastisch describes such periphrastic constructions; English provides well-known examples through its auxiliary system.

See also: Periphrase; Circumlocution; Auxiliary verb; Passive voice; Tense and aspect.