- published: 27 Jan 2015
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The imperfective (abbreviated IPFV or more ambiguously IMPV) is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure,[clarification needed] such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a general imperfective, others have distinct aspects for one or more of its various roles, such as progressive, habitual, and iterative aspects.
English is an example of a language with no general imperfective. The English progressive is used to describe ongoing events such as "The rain was beating down". Habitual situations do not have their own verb form, but the construction "used to" conveys past habitual action, as in "I used to ski". Unlike in languages with a general imperfective, in English the simple past tense can be used for situations presented as ongoing, such as "The rain beat down continuously through the night".
Slavic languages are examples of languages with verbs that have perfective and/or an imperfective form. Imperfectives can be turned into perfectives with any of various prefixes. Perfectives can be turned into imperfectives with a suffix. The non-past imperfective form is used for the present, while its perfective counterpart is used for the future. There is also a periphrastic imperfective future construction.