34 that regularly takes place, while the continuous aspect refers to an action that is
still taking a place at the moment of speaking. The continuous aspect is divided into two: non-progressive and progressive. Non-progressive aspect deals with
action that has no duration, in contrast, the progressive aspect concerns with actions emphasizing the duration.
Figure 2. 5 Diagram of grammatical aspects in English Comrie, 1976
In addition to Comrie’s idea about grammatical aspects, Murcia and Freeman 1999 mention four categories of grammatical aspects in English:
simple aspect, perfect aspect, progressive aspect and the combination of the perfect and the progressive aspects. In contrast to Palmer 1984 who agrees that
there are only two tenses in the English, Murcia and Freeman believes that there are three time references or tenses in English; they are the present, the past, and
the future times. Therefore, Murcia and Freeman agrees that the combination of the tenses
and aspects constructs the 12 traditional tenses. The following chart provides a summary of combinations between the four grammatical aspects and the three
35
Grammatical Aspects
Simple Aspects
Past Present
Future
Progressive Aspects
past Present
Future
Perfect Aspects
Past Present
Future
Perfect-Progressive Aspects
Past
Present
Future
time references or tenses. This chart of the four grammatical aspects the simple, the perfect, the progressive and the perfect-progressive is adapted from Murcia
and Freeman 1999.
a. Simple aspect
According to Murcia and Freeman, a simple aspect “refers to events that are conceptualized as complete wholes”. In other words, it can be elaborated that
simple aspects depict an action that is completed at a specific point in time. For instance, a simple aspect in a past time indicates that an action was completed in a
specific point of time in the past time. Combined with tenses, a simple aspect is divided into three: present simple, past simple and future simple. To indicate a
simple aspect in present time the verbs being used are simple verbs such as bare infinitive or verb V1+s or +es, verb in the past form V2 is used to indicate
Figure 2.6 Combination of Grammatical aspects in English and three time
references, adapted from Murcia and Freeman 1999
36 simple aspect in the past time, whereas verb ‘V1 +will or +be going to’ is used
in simple aspect with a future time reference. The choice of verbs used in the simple aspect in present time whether the sentence uses bare infinitive or verb
with +s or +es is based on the subject of the sentences.
b. Perfect Aspect
Perfect aspect deals with ‘prior’ action that relates an action to another action at some point in time. Combined with tenses as the time references, a
perfect aspect is also divided into three: present perfect, past perfect and future perfect. In a perfect aspect the sentence structure uses past participle to indicate
an action that is done in the present, past or will be done in the future time. Sentences structure of perfect aspect in present time is: subject + hashave + V3
past participle. A difference between the uses of has or has lies on the subject. For a sentence with third person singular as its subject, auxiliary verb ‘has’ is
used. For the sentences with the first person singular and plural, second person or third person plural as their subject, the auxiliary verb ‘have’ is used. A
sentence structure for perfect aspect in past time is: subject + had + V3 past participle. This past perfect aspect use had for all subject types, whether the
subject is third person singular, second person, plural or any subject. A sentence structure for future aspect is: will + have + V3. The words ‘will have’ remain the
same for any subjects the sentence has in future perfect.
c. Progressive Aspect
Murcia Freeman 1999 adds that the basic meaning of progressive aspect is imperfective. An action depicted with this aspect is an event that is
possible to be incomplete or somehow limited. Divided into three: the present
