| Name | Example | Past | Future | Imperf. | Perf. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple past | I walked. | + | |||
| Past Progressive | I was walking. | + | + | ||
| Pluperfect | I had walked. | + | + | ||
| Past perfect progressive | I had been walking. | + | + | + | |
| Simple present | I walk. | ||||
| Present progressive | I am walking. | + | |||
| Present perfect | I have walked. | + | |||
| Present perfect progressive | I have been walking. | + | + | ||
| Future | I will walk. | + | |||
| Future progressive | I will be walking. | + | + | ||
| Future perfect | I will have walked. | + | + | ||
| Future perfect progressive | I will have been walking | + | + | + |
English Aspects:
- Perfective - focuses on the end
- Imperfective - focuses on the middle
- Both - from the beginning to the end
Hebrew Imperfect Aspect:
- Conative - before the beginning
- Inceptive - at and just after the beginning
- Progressive - in the middle
- Egressive - just before the end
- Resultative - before and after the end
- Gnomic - none
Hebrew Perfective Aspect:
- Ingressive - at the beginning
- Constantive - from the beginning to the end
- Constantive! - from the beginning to near the end
- Perfect - at the end
- Gnomic - none
Definition of Hebrew aspects
The imperfective aspect is a close-up o a small section of the event where the progressive action is made visible. The perfective aspect is a view, as if from some distance, of a great part, or of the whole of the event, where the details of the progressive action are not made visible. The imperfective aspect may include either the beginning or the end, the perfective aspect includes either the beginning and not the end, or both beginning and end.
-The Verbal System of Classical Hebrew. An Attempt to Distinguish between Semantic and Pragmatic Factors. - Rolf Furuli, University of Oslo
