Origins, influences and descriptive impact of the category "verbal aspect" in Spanish: a history through time

Abstract

Next to verb tense, the category of grammatical aspect is, perhaps, the one that has seen more ink flow in the description of the verb over the last two centuries. However, the descriptive potential of the concept has been diminished by the distortions it has suffered from its creation until the present. Having emerged as a term in the field of Slavic languages to account for a linguistic reality that only materialised formally in them, it was then attempted to transfer its essence to others whose functioning evaded explanation through the new construct. This fact motivated the terminological neonate to find a gap in the description of systems that rejected it: either transposing its distinctive sign to other disciplines such as lexicon or syntax, or using the extralinguistic context as an excuse. As a result, such a concept, manipulated by the methodological principles of different schools, has lost descriptive authenticity. In this paper, the origins, causes and repercussions that the new verbal category has had on the grammatical description of Spanish are therefore analysed, while at the same time its future as an explanatory motor of the verb is assessed.