Investigating the Interaction of Progressive Aspect and Aktionsart in Persian

Aspect is divided to lexical and grammatical types. Lexical aspect is derived from verb meaning and its subtypes are states, activities, achievements and accomplishments; Grammatical aspect is represented by inflection or some auxiliary verbs and includes perfective, imperfective, perfect and prospective ones. The present paper, in the framework of Role and Reference Grammar, studies the interaction of Aktionsart and progressive aspect in Persian verbs. It is usually accepted that states, don’t appear with progressive aspect, while “waxing or waning situations, agentivity and temporary situations”, pave the way for them to be used with progressive aspect. Activities are mostly compatible with progressive as their dynamicity is in accord with progression. Achievements are usually regarded unacceptable, but they can have different readings in progressive aspect including preliminary process, slow motion, iterative, futurate progressive and commentary reading. Accomplishments due to being durative and having stages, are acceptable in progressive aspect.