perifrastic

Perifrastic, often spelled periphrastic, is a linguistic term for constructions that express grammatical meaning by combining multiple words rather than encoding it in a single inflected form. The term derives from periphrasis, from Greek peri- around and phrasis speaking, and is used to describe forms that rely on auxiliary verbs, participles, or circumlocutions.

In practice, perifrastic forms convey tense, aspect, mood, voice, or modality. Examples include the English progressive tense: I am eating; the perfect aspect: I have eaten; the near future or intention: I am going to eat or I will eat; the periphrastic passive: The ball was thrown; near-future constructions in other languages such as voy a comer (Spanish) or je vais manger (French).

Typology and usage: Perifrastics are common in analytic or flexible word-order languages, where grammatical relationships are expressed by auxiliary words rather than by inflection. They can accompany or replace synthetic inflection as languages change over time or under language contact. Some languages employ periphrasis to add nuance such as evidentiality, aspectual shading, or mood. In linguistic description, perifrasis is often contrasted with synthetic or inflectional forms, which encode tense, aspect, or voice in a single word. Perifrastic constructions thus play a central role in the study of tense and aspect systems and in the analysis of language change and typology.