CAJ | 학술논문

Aspect, which is different from tense, deals with the internal structure of an action and allows people to describe or understand how an event unfolds over time. This paper examines the similarities and differences between English and Chinese progressive aspect in terms of form, meaning and use. The main findings are that in the first place the progressive aspect in both English and Chinese expresses the same core meaning, which is to describe the incomplete or ongoing state of an event or action. Secondly, the progressive aspect in English must be realized by grammatical device with inflectional changes, whereas in Chinese, it can be realized without verbal inflections (only with aspect markers). Thirdly, there exist differences between the English and Chinese progressive aspect in some specific usages. This contrastive study aims to deepen the understanding of the two languages, and provide practical and effective pedagogical suggestions for Chinese learners of English studying the progressive aspect.