some basic questions about morphological aspect

Question

According to the definition, morphological aspect presents the reported event or state of affairs as if viewed either from inside the event (‘in progress’) or outside the event (‘as a whole’).

For example:

1. Perfect Aspect: have + past.participle a. John had eaten an apple. b. John has eaten an apple. c. John will have eaten an apple.
2. Progressive Aspect: be + present.participle a. John was eating an apple. b. John is eating an apple. c. John will be eating an apple.

But I'm wondering whether morphological aspect only refers to perfect aspect and progressive aspect? If not, what does this sentence "John eats apple" belong to?

Answer 1

Part of the difficulty in discussing aspect in English is that English is a tense-prominent language rather than an aspect-prominent language. So the main (and obligatory) grammatical marker on English verbs is past/non-past tense, not perfective/imperfective aspect.

English has one main aspectual suffix, -ing. It marks progressive aspect, which is a sub-category of imperfective aspect.

The sentence 'John eats apples' communicates the semantics of habitual aspect, however there is no morphological aspect. In other languages the habitual is a sub-category of imperfective aspect, but in English it uses the simple verb form, which is normally considered to have perfective aspect.

To get a better grasp on aspect it would be better to investigate it in some aspect-prominent languages, such as the Slavic languages.