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§ 3. The aspective category of development is constituted by the 
opposition of the continuous forms of the verb to the non-
continuous, or indefinite forms of the verb. The marked member of 
the opposition is the continuous, which is built up by the auxiliary 
be plus the present participle of the conjugated verb. In symbolic 
notation it is represented by the formula be...ing. The categorial 
meaning of the continuous is "action in progress"; the unmarked 
member of the opposition, the indefinite, leaves this meaning un-
specified, i.e. expresses the non-continuous. 
The evolution of views in connection with the interpretation of the 
continuous forms has undergone three stages. 
The traditional analysis placed them among the tense-forms of the 
verb, defining them as expressing an action going on simultane-
ously with some other action. This temporal interpretation of the 
continuous was most consistently developed in the works of H. 
Sweet and O. Jespersen. In point of fact, the continuous usually 
goes with a verb which expresses a simultaneous action, but, as we 
have stated before, the timing of the action is not expressed by the 
continuous as such — rather, the immediate time-meaning is con-
veyed by the syntactic constructions, as well as the broader seman-
tic context in which the form is used, since action in progress, by 
definition, implies that it is developing at a certain time point. 
The correlation of the continuous with contextual indications of 
time is well illustrated on examples of complex sentences with 
while-clauses. Four combinations of the continuous and the indefi-
nite are possible in principle in these constructions (for two verbs 
are used here, one in the principal clause and one in the subordi-
nate clause, each capable 

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of taking both forms in question), and all the four possibilities are 
realised in contexts of Modern English. Cf.: 
While I was typing, Mary and Tom were chatting in the 
adjoining room. While I typed, Mary and Tom were 
chatting in the adjoining room. ---While I was typing, 
they chatted in the adjoining room. While I typed, they 
chatted in the adjoining room. 
Clearly, the difference in meaning between the verb-entries in the 
cited examples cannot lie in their time denotations, either absolut-
ive, or relative. The time is shown by their tense-signals of the past 
(the past form of the auxiliary be in the continuous, or the suffix -
{e)d in the indefinite). The meaningful difference consists exactly 
in the categorial semantics of the indefinite and continuous: while 
the latter shows the action in the very process of its realisation, the 
former points it out as a mere fact. 
On the other hand, by virtue of its categorial semantics of action in 
progress (of necessity, at a definite point of time), the continuous is 
usually employed in descriptions of scenes correlating a number of 
actions going on simultaneously — since all of them are actually 
shown in progress, at the time implied by the narration. Cf.: 
Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window 
into the hall of the Ayuntamiento and in there it was as it had been 
before. The priest was standing, and those who were left were 
kneeling in a half circle around him and they were all praying. 
Pablo was sitting on the big table in front of the Mayor's chair with 
his shotgun slung over his back. His legs were hanging down from 
the table and he was rolling a cigarette. Cuatro Dedos was sitting 
in the Mayor's chair with his feet on the table and he was smoking a 
cigarette. All the guards were sitting in different chairs of the ad-
ministration, holding their guns. The key to the big door was on the 
table beside Pablo (E. Hemingway). 
But if the actions are not progressive by themselves (i.e. if they are 
not shown as progressive), the description, naturally, will go with-
out the continuous forms of the corresponding verbs. E. g.: 
Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval Maidan, and a long sal-
low hospital. Houses belonging to Eurasians stand on the high 
ground by the railway station. Beyond the railway — which runs 
parallel to the river — the land sinks, 

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then rises again rather steeply. On the second rise is laid out the lit-
tle civil station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a to-
tally different place (E. M. Forster ). 
A further demonstration of the essentially non-temporal meaning 
of the continuous is its regular use in combination with the perfect, 
i.e. its use in the verb-form perfect continuous. Surely, the very 
idea of perfect is alien to simultaneity, so the continuous combined 
with the perfect in one and the same manifestation of the verb can 
only be understood as expressing aspectuality, i.e. action in pro-
gress. 
Thus, the consideration of the temporal element in the continuous 
shows that its referring an action to a definite time-point, or its ex-
pressing simultaneity irrespective of absolutive time, is in itself an 
aspective, not a temporal factor. 
At the second stage of the interpretation of the continuous, the 
form was understood as rendering a blend of temporal and aspec-
tive meanings — the same as the other forms of the verb obliquely 
connected with the factor of time, i.e. the indefinite and the perfect. 
This view was developed by I. P. Ivanova. 
The combined temporal-aspective interpretation of the continuous, 
in general, should be appraised as an essential step forward, be-
cause, first, it introduced on an explicit, comprehensively grounded 
basis the idea of aspective meanings in the grammatical system of 
English; second, it demonstrated the actual connection of time and 
aspect in the integral categorial semantics of the verb. In fact, it 
presented a thesis that proved to be crucial for the subsequent 
demonstration, at the next stage of analysis, of the essence of the 
form on a strictly oppositional foundation. 
This latter phase of study, initiated in the works of A. I.Smirnitsky, 
V. N. Yartseva and B. A. Ilyish, was developed further by B. S. 
Khaimovich and B. I. Rogovskaya and exposed in its most com-
prehensive form by L. S. Barkhudarov. 
Probably the final touch contributing to the presentation of the 
category of development at this third stage of study should be still 
more explicit demonstration of its opposition working beyond the 
correlation of the continuous non-perfect form with the indefinite 
non-perfect form. In the expositions hitherto advanced the two se-
ries of forms — continuous and perfect — have been shown, as it 
were, too emphatically in the light of their mutual contrast against 
the 

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primitive indefinite, the perfect continuous form, which has been 
placed somewhat separately, being rather interpreted as a "pecu-
liarly modified" perfect than a "peculiarly modified'' continuous. In 
reality, though, the perfect continuous is equally both perfect and 
continuous, the respective markings belonging to different, though 
related, categorial characteristics.