<p>Well, y'know, ANADEW and all that, but...</p>

<p>As far as I know, there is no natural language with a grammaticalized <em>antiperfect</em> aspect--i.e., an aspect where the time of the action is <em>after</em> the reference point, rather than before.</p>

<p>Present Perfect: "He has come."
Past Perfect (pluperfect): "He had come."
Future Perfect: "He will have come."</p>

<p>In each case, the event occurs before the reference time defined by the tense. In the case of future perfect, this may or may not be before the present.</p>

<p>An antiperfect flips that around</p>

<p>Present Antiperfect: "He is going to come." / "He is about to come."
 (approximately)
Past Antiperfect: "He was going to come." / "He was about to come."
 (approximately)
Future Antiperfect: "He will be going to come." / "He will be about to come." (approximately)</p>

<p>The various English paraphrases all have some extraneous additional implications (e.g., "He was going to come" implies that he didn't actually, "about to" implies that the action is nearby) that are not inherent to the antiperfect aspect, if it were grammaticalized. The important thing is that the action occurs after the reference time, but not necessarily after the present. Thus, just like a future perfect action <em>could</em> have occurred in the past, a past antiperfect <em>could</em> occur in the future.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-21T23:47:27.870Z
@LoganR.Kearsley What you're calling "antiperfect" is typically referred to as [prospective aspect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospective_aspect).
Sparksbet
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-22T06:27:03.123Z
@Sparksbet See the preceding discussion. Yes, I am aware of the "prospective" terminology, but as long as everyone prefers "perfect" to "retrospective", I prefer the corresponding "antiperfect". Pick one pair or the other, but keep 'em consistent!

And since I have yet to meet a natlang that actually does have a fully grammaticalized and productive prospective/antiperfect aspect (although apparent Portuguese might be an example with a non-traditional analysis), I don't mind changing the terminology.
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-22T06:29:48.120Z
This is one of the reasons I (and many others) prefer "retrospective" to "perfect" in the first place (among others). In any case, "antiperfect" is a term I have never seen used by a linguist.
Sparksbet
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-23T05:06:41.487Z
@Sparksbet Well, I can't fault you for that opinion. But, now you *have* seen it used by a linguist. :)
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-23T14:44:54.577Z
StackExchange does not, as far as I'm aware, count as part of the body of linguistic literature XD
Sparksbet
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-23T21:24:02.907Z
@Sparksbet True, but that's moving the goalposts! You didn't specify that you wanted to see it *in the literature*, just that you hadn't seen it *used by a linguist*.
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-23T21:44:46.777Z
lol, if you ascribe everything a linguist does in their free-time as done "by a linguist," I guess, you're right ;P
Sparksbet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-26T15:36:05.633Z
This is three years late, but I believe that the Latin future periphrastic (future active participle + *esse* 'to be') maps onto this pretty exactly. It also makes me think of the alternative imperfect subjunctive forms of *esse:* these would usually go *essem, esses, esset, etc.,* but the forms *forem, fores, foret, etc.* also exist with exclusive reference to future-in-the-past.
Anonym
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T18:45:38.440Z
These all seem more like tense+aspects than aspects
L. L. Blumire
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2018-02-07T21:05:22.347Z
Would that not just be a prospective aspect, or perhaps a relative future tense?
Sascha Baer
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T22:24:28.877Z
@L.L.Blumire Present Perfect is a tense+aspect. Perfect is an aspect, which can be combined with any tense. Similarly, Present Antiperfect is a tense+aspect. Antiperfect itself is still just an aspect, which can be combined with any tense.
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T22:28:01.313Z
@Adarain Yes, prospective is pretty much a synonym for antiperfect, just as retrospective aspect is a synonym for perfect aspect. Nevertheless, I have yet to meet a natlang that actually has a grammaticalized prospective aspect. (Although a little Googling now indicates that maybe Basque has one? Like I said, ANADEW and all that.)
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-08T00:58:15.310Z
@LoganR.Kearsley The English perfect is not really an aspect, but a different kind of temporal construction. Aspect is about the internal temporal structure of events, which the perfect does not communicate (in English at least). Also what's ANADEW?
curiousdannii
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-08T01:09:05.917Z
[More on relative future here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to_future#Expressions_of_relative_future). It may be that some languages do grammaticalise it, but it's not perfectly clear for now and depends how you analyse it. Even English may, in phrases like "I will be going to eat."
curiousdannii
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-08T06:05:27.243Z
@curiousdannii The question itself and the wikipedia article on grammatical aspect both disagree with you. You may have a good point that perhaps the perfect *shouldn't* be analyzed as an aspect, but as long as the question itself lists it as such, similar types of constructions are fair game for answers.
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-08T06:10:05.467Z
@GypsySpellweaver It's neutral in connotation. Just a reminder that there is no end to interesting stuff you can find in natlangs, and their version of whatever-it-is is probably more complex and less tidy than yours.

I suppose it's mildly positive in naturalistic circles, since if a natlang already does it, you know you're justified in using it.
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-10T13:07:46.673Z
*Past Antiperfect: "He was going to come."* - Portuguese - and I suppose several other Romance languages - has this; your sentence tranlates as "*Ele viria*". But we don't call it "past antiperfect"; we call it "*futuro do pretérito*" - future of the past. Which raises another issue: the way one classifies the grammatical categories of a language is not neutral, and a foreign linguist can see, and classify, some feature very differently from a native speaker - or even a native linguist.
Luís Henrique
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-10T13:16:06.413Z
And so, what a conlanger thinks is a unique feature of his or her language may well exist in a natlang, under a very different label.
Luís Henrique
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-11T00:27:11.220Z
@LuísHenrique I have heard "future of the past" used to refer to the subjunctive mood in many cases (since it is often constructed that way). Just to be sure, is the Portuguese example genuinely an instance of a realis-mood aspect, or is it more modal? And if it is genuinely aspectual, is it possible to use that structure in the present and future tenses as well, with the appropriate interpretation?
Logan R. Kearsley
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-11T02:10:32.943Z
@LoganR.Kearsley - Portuguese has a quite complete (though in huge part now obsolete) mood-tense system, that distinguishes tense from mood quite well. So we have a complete subjunctive, with three tenses - imperfect past, present, future. They are used in combination with indicative tenses; the subjunctive past is used in conjunction with the indicative "future of the past", to form sentences like "*se todo mundo gostasse de amarelo, o tinta azul seria mais barata*" - "if everyone liked yellow, blue paint would be cheaper".
Luís Henrique
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-11T02:17:22.857Z
This made older grammarians to consider forms like *viria* and *seria* a separate mood - the *conditional*. Somewhere between the thirties and the sixties of the 20th century, such view was abandoned in favour of the classification I described before - the "future of the past". So as we see, such constructions could be considered a matter of aspect - the "antiperfect" you mentioned in your answer - or a matter of mood - the "conditional" of the ancient grammarians' take - or a matter of tense - the "future of the past" of modern grammar.
Luís Henrique
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-11T02:23:55.013Z
So, it is complicated - certainly Portuguese/Brazilian grammarians have not considered it a matter of aspect. But I don't see why one could not do it; after all, Portuguese grammar classifies its (non-composite) pasts as "perfect", "imperfect", and "pluperfect", but the latter two could easily be analised as "present of the past" and "past of the past" respectively.
Luís Henrique
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-11T02:28:26.140Z
And so, within an artlang that is built with a fitting conculture, the way we analyse those forms could be different from the way the fictional grammarians in that conculture analyse them. The other point is that most languages have very incoherent mood/tense/aspect systems, and conlangs will probably replicate that, either intentionally, for increased realism, or because the conlanger mimicks his own language(s) system, unaware of their contradictions and confusions...
Luís Henrique
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T17:43:15.363Z
2018-02-08T06:06:04.280Z
2018-02-08T06:06:04.280Z
Logan R. Kearsley
<p><strong>Morotuncanian</strong> has some verbal aspects that I rather doubt appear in natural languages of the primary world.</p>

<p><em>Sedative</em> and <em>Excitative</em> verbal aspects. The former aspect expresses the nature of the action, through time, as calming and steady in nature. The latter aspect expresses the nature of the action, through time, as unsteady or agitated in nature, but not to the point of being considered iterative or incessant.</p>

<p><strong>bollahcctuerayas er som huomuram le ciwamauroyas : aa : bollahccendayas hasto curelloram le ollaloyas.</strong></p>

<p><em>Youth fidgets whilst age naps.</em></p>

<p>Or, literally, "Are sitting agitatedly with the earth the younglings while are sitting calmly, majestically towards chair the elders."</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-25T05:01:16.623Z
Which parts of that sentence are the sedative/excitative markers? And how do they relate to the internal temporal structure of the verb?
curiousdannii
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-25T05:17:17.067Z
-tuer- is the *agitative* marker, -end- is the *sedative* marker. bor- (here elided) is the gnomic / universal present tense marker. These are among the stative aspects (like incessant vs approximative aspects) and thus describe the nature of the action itself rather than its temporal domain.
elemtilas
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-25T08:27:19.493Z
Why do you think these should be considered aspects rather than manner adverbs?
curiousdannii
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-25T02:51:23.860Z
2018-02-25T02:51:23.860Z
elemtilas
<p>In Describing Morphosyntax, Payne uses a number of diagrams for visually explaining aspects and what they say about actions relative to time.</p>

<p>Payne outlines the following, all of which occur in natural languages.</p>

<p><strong>Perfective</strong></p>

<p><code>[-----]</code> He wrote a letter.</p>

<p><strong>Imperfective</strong></p>

<p><code>&lt;-----&gt;</code> He writes letters.</p>

<p><strong>Perfect</strong></p>

<p><code>-----|x</code> He has come from Aqaba.</p>

<p><strong>Pluperfect</strong></p>

<p><code>---|DC---(now)</code> I had entered a congested zone.</p>

<p><strong>Completive</strong></p>

<p><code>&gt;-----|</code> She finished working.</p>

<p><strong>Inceptive</strong></p>

<p><code>[-----&gt;</code> She began working.</p>

<p><strong>Continuative/progressive</strong></p>

<p><code>&gt;-----&gt;</code> He is writing letters</p>

<p><strong>Punctual</strong></p>

<p><code>x</code> He sneezed.</p>

<p><strong>Iterative</strong></p>

<p><code>&gt;-x-x-x-&gt;</code> He is coughing.</p>

<p><strong>Habitual</strong></p>

<p><code>&lt;-----&gt;</code> He drinks.</p>

<hr>

<p>Are there other Aspects that do <strong>not</strong> appear in natural languages which have been invented for conlangs, and could they be represented with a similar visual diagram?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-08T15:07:21.950Z
I'd like to ask, do (naturally formed) SLs count? These can have many aspects unknown to most natlangs, but I wonder if any aspect isn't naturally formed in spoken languages. EDIT: Also, could answerers explain how they discovered that information?
Duncan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-11T09:56:25.063Z
Lojban has so-called superfective (using za'o), but I don't know if its also used by natlangs or if it is an aspect at all.
Duncan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T15:19:11.573Z
Are Imperfective and Habitual supposed to have the same diagrams? (I'm not familiar with the book referenced in the question.)
lee
<grammar><morphology><semantics><tense-aspect-mood><unnatural-features>
Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
# Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-02-07)

In Describing Morphosyntax, Payne uses a number of diagrams for visually explaining aspects and what they say about actions relative to time.

Payne outlines the following, all of which occur in natural languages.

**Perfective**

`[-----]` He wrote a letter.

**Imperfective**

`<----->` He writes letters.

**Perfect**

`-----|x` He has come from Aqaba.

**Pluperfect**

`---|DC---(now)` I had entered a congested zone.

**Completive**

`>-----|` She finished working.

**Inceptive**

`[----->` She began working.

**Continuative/progressive**

`>----->` He is writing letters

**Punctual**

`x` He sneezed.

**Iterative**

`>-x-x-x->` He is coughing.

**Habitual**

`<----->` He drinks.

---

Are there other Aspects that do **not** appear in natural languages which have been invented for conlangs, and could they be represented with a similar visual diagram?

**Tags:** grammar, morphology, semantics, tense-aspect-mood, unnatural-features

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Are Imperfective and Habitual supposed to have the same diagrams? (I'm not familiar with the book referenced in the question.)  
> **username_1**: I'd like to ask, do (naturally formed) SLs count? These can have many aspects unknown to most natlangs, but I wonder if any aspect isn't naturally formed in spoken languages. EDIT: Also, could answerers explain how they discovered that information?  
> **username_1**: Lojban has so-called superfective (using za'o), but I don't know if its also used by natlangs or if it is an aspect at all.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-02-07. Score: 9

Well, y'know, ANADEW and all that, but...

As far as I know, there is no natural language with a grammaticalized *antiperfect* aspect--i.e., an aspect where the time of the action is *after* the reference point, rather than before.

Present Perfect: "He has come."
Past Perfect (pluperfect): "He had come."
Future Perfect: "He will have come."

In each case, the event occurs before the reference time defined by the tense. In the case of future perfect, this may or may not be before the present.

An antiperfect flips that around

Present Antiperfect: "He is going to come." / "He is about to come."
(approximately)
Past Antiperfect: "He was going to come." / "He was about to come."
(approximately)
Future Antiperfect: "He will be going to come." / "He will be about to come." (approximately)

The various English paraphrases all have some extraneous additional implications (e.g., "He was going to come" implies that he didn't actually, "about to" implies that the action is nearby) that are not inherent to the antiperfect aspect, if it were grammaticalized. The important thing is that the action occurs after the reference time, but not necessarily after the present. Thus, just like a future perfect action *could* have occurred in the past, a past antiperfect *could* occur in the future.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: These all seem more like tense+aspects than aspects  
> **username_6**: Would that not just be a prospective aspect, or perhaps a relative future tense?  
> **username_3**: @L.L.Blumire Present Perfect is a tense+aspect. Perfect is an aspect, which can be combined with any tense. Similarly, Present Antiperfect is a tense+aspect. Antiperfect itself is still just an aspect, which can be combined with any tense.  
> **username_3**: @Adarain Yes, prospective is pretty much a synonym for antiperfect, just as retrospective aspect is a synonym for perfect aspect. Nevertheless, I have yet to meet a natlang that actually has a grammaticalized prospective aspect. (Although a little Googling now indicates that maybe Basque has one? Like I said, ANADEW and all that.)  
> **username_7**: @LoganR.Kearsley The English perfect is not really an aspect, but a different kind of temporal construction. Aspect is about the internal temporal structure of events, which the perfect does not communicate (in English at least). Also what's ANADEW?  
> **username_7**: [More on relative future here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to_future#Expressions_of_relative_future). It may be that some languages do grammaticalise it, but it's not perfectly clear for now and depends how you analyse it. Even English may, in phrases like "I will be going to eat."  
> **username_3**: @username_7 The question itself and the wikipedia article on grammatical aspect both disagree with you. You may have a good point that perhaps the perfect *shouldn't* be analyzed as an aspect, but as long as the question itself lists it as such, similar types of constructions are fair game for answers.  
> **username_3**: @GypsySpellweaver It's neutral in connotation. Just a reminder that there is no end to interesting stuff you can find in natlangs, and their version of whatever-it-is is probably more complex and less tidy than yours.  I suppose it's mildly positive in naturalistic circles, since if a natlang already does it, you know you're justified in using it.  
> **username_8**: *Past Antiperfect: "He was going to come."* - Portuguese - and I suppose several other Romance languages - has this; your sentence tranlates as "*Ele viria*". But we don't call it "past antiperfect"; we call it "*futuro do pretérito*" - future of the past. Which raises another issue: the way one classifies the grammatical categories of a language is not neutral, and a foreign linguist can see, and classify, some feature very differently from a native speaker - or even a native linguist.  
> **username_8**: And so, what a conlanger thinks is a unique feature of his or her language may well exist in a natlang, under a very different label.  
> **username_3**: @LuísHenrique I have heard "future of the past" used to refer to the subjunctive mood in many cases (since it is often constructed that way). Just to be sure, is the Portuguese example genuinely an instance of a realis-mood aspect, or is it more modal? And if it is genuinely aspectual, is it possible to use that structure in the present and future tenses as well, with the appropriate interpretation?  
> **username_8**: @LoganR.Kearsley - Portuguese has a quite complete (though in huge part now obsolete) mood-tense system, that distinguishes tense from mood quite well. So we have a complete subjunctive, with three tenses - imperfect past, present, future. They are used in combination with indicative tenses; the subjunctive past is used in conjunction with the indicative "future of the past", to form sentences like "*se todo mundo gostasse de amarelo, o tinta azul seria mais barata*" - "if everyone liked yellow, blue paint would be cheaper".  
> **username_8**: This made older grammarians to consider forms like *viria* and *seria* a separate mood - the *conditional*. Somewhere between the thirties and the sixties of the 20th century, such view was abandoned in favour of the classification I described before - the "future of the past". So as we see, such constructions could be considered a matter of aspect - the "antiperfect" you mentioned in your answer - or a matter of mood - the "conditional" of the ancient grammarians' take - or a matter of tense - the "future of the past" of modern grammar.  
> **username_8**: So, it is complicated - certainly Portuguese/Brazilian grammarians have not considered it a matter of aspect. But I don't see why one could not do it; after all, Portuguese grammar classifies its (non-composite) pasts as "perfect", "imperfect", and "pluperfect", but the latter two could easily be analised as "present of the past" and "past of the past" respectively.  
> **username_8**: And so, within an artlang that is built with a fitting conculture, the way we analyse those forms could be different from the way the fictional grammarians in that conculture analyse them. The other point is that most languages have very incoherent mood/tense/aspect systems, and conlangs will probably replicate that, either intentionally, for increased realism, or because the conlanger mimicks his own language(s) system, unaware of their contradictions and confusions...  
> **username_4**: @LoganR.Kearsley What you're calling "antiperfect" is typically referred to as [prospective aspect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospective_aspect).  
> **username_3**: @username_4 See the preceding discussion. Yes, I am aware of the "prospective" terminology, but as long as everyone prefers "perfect" to "retrospective", I prefer the corresponding "antiperfect". Pick one pair or the other, but keep 'em consistent!  And since I have yet to meet a natlang that actually does have a fully grammaticalized and productive prospective/antiperfect aspect (although apparent Portuguese might be an example with a non-traditional analysis), I don't mind changing the terminology.  
> **username_4**: This is one of the reasons I (and many others) prefer "retrospective" to "perfect" in the first place (among others). In any case, "antiperfect" is a term I have never seen used by a linguist.  
> **username_3**: @username_4 Well, I can't fault you for that opinion. But, now you *have* seen it used by a linguist. :)  
> **username_4**: StackExchange does not, as far as I'm aware, count as part of the body of linguistic literature XD  
> **username_3**: @username_4 True, but that's moving the goalposts! You didn't specify that you wanted to see it *in the literature*, just that you hadn't seen it *used by a linguist*.  
> **username_4**: lol, if you ascribe everything a linguist does in their free-time as done "by a linguist," I guess, you're right ;P  
> **username_5**: This is three years late, but I believe that the Latin future periphrastic (future active participle + *esse* 'to be') maps onto this pretty exactly. It also makes me think of the alternative imperfect subjunctive forms of *esse:* these would usually go *essem, esses, esset, etc.,* but the forms *forem, fores, foret, etc.* also exist with exclusive reference to future-in-the-past.  

---

### Answer by username_9 on 2018-02-25. Score: 3

**Morotuncanian** has some verbal aspects that I rather doubt appear in natural languages of the primary world.

*Sedative* and *Excitative* verbal aspects. The former aspect expresses the nature of the action, through time, as calming and steady in nature. The latter aspect expresses the nature of the action, through time, as unsteady or agitated in nature, but not to the point of being considered iterative or incessant.

**bollahcctuerayas er som huomuram le ciwamauroyas : aa : bollahccendayas hasto curelloram le ollaloyas.**

*Youth fidgets whilst age naps.*

Or, literally, "Are sitting agitatedly with the earth the younglings while are sitting calmly, majestically towards chair the elders."

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: Which parts of that sentence are the sedative/excitative markers? And how do they relate to the internal temporal structure of the verb?  
> **username_9**: -tuer- is the *agitative* marker, -end- is the *sedative* marker. bor- (here elided) is the gnomic / universal present tense marker. These are among the stative aspects (like incessant vs approximative aspects) and thus describe the nature of the action itself rather than its temporal domain.  
> **username_7**: Why do you think these should be considered aspects rather than manner adverbs?  

---

