For the concept in criminal law, see Inchoate offense.
Inchoative aspect (abbreviated inch or incho), also known as inceptive, is a grammatical aspect, referring to the beginning of a state.[1][2] It can be found in conservative Indo-European languages such as Latin and Lithuanian, and also in Finnic languages or European derived languages with high percentage of Latin-based words like Esperanto. It should not be confused with the prospective,[3] which denotes actions that are about to start. The English language can approximate the inchoative aspect through the verbs "to become" or "to get" combined with an adjective.
Since inchoative is a grammatical aspect and not a tense, it can be combined with tenses to form past inchoative, frequentative past inchoative and future inchoative, all used in Lithuanian.
In Russian, inchoatives are regularly derived from unidirectional imperfective verbs of motion by adding the prefix по-po-, e.g. бежатьbezhát', побежатьpobezhát': "to run", "to start running". Also compare шлиshli (normal past tense plural of идтиidtí, "to go") with Пошли!Poshlí! meaning approximately "Let's get going!". Certain other verbs can be marked for the inchoative aspect with the prefix за-za- (e.g. он засмеялсяon zasmejálsja, "he started laughing", он заплакалon zaplákal "he started crying"). Similar behavior is observed in Ukrainian, and in other Slavic languages.
In Latin, the inchoative aspect was marked with the infix -sc-:
amo, I love; amasco, I'm starting to love, I'm falling in love
florere, to flower, florescere, to start flowering
In Esperanto, any verb is made inchoative by the prefix ek-:
danci, ekdanci: "to dance", "to start dancing"
The term inchoative verb is used by generative grammarians to refer to a class of verbs that reflect a change of state; e. g., "John aged" or "The fog cleared". This usage bears little or no relationship to the aspectual usage described above.
^Loos, Eugene E.; Susan Anderson; Dwight H. Day, Jr.; Paul C. Jordan; J. Douglas Wingate. "Inchoative Aspect". Glossary of linguistic terms. SIL International.
^Loos, Eugene E.; Susan Anderson; Dwight H. Day, Jr.; Paul C. Jordan; J. Douglas Wingate. "Prospective". Glossary of linguistic terms. SIL International.
tenses to form past inchoative, frequentative past inchoative and future inchoative, all used in Lithuanian. In Russian, inchoatives are regularly derived...
An inchoative verb, sometimes called an "inceptive" verb, shows a process of beginning or becoming. Productive inchoative affixes exist in several languages...
occur as imperatives, except when used in an inchoative manner. Run! *Know the answer! Know thyself! (inchoative, not stative; archaic) They cannot appear...
suffixes for verbs, which carry frequentative, momentane, causative, and inchoativeaspect meanings. Also, pairs of verbs differing only in transitivity exist...
sleeping. Inchoative tenses are not a part of common Lithuanian speech, their use is limited to literary language and even there only past inchoative tense...
structure. Other languages instead have separate momentane, inchoative, or cessative aspects for those roles, with or without a general perfective. English...
cessative aspect or terminative aspect is a grammatical aspect referring to the end of an action or a state. It is the opposite of the inchoativeaspect and...
are two aspects: the nasugdan (incepted [past/present inchoative]) aspect and the pagasugdan (incepting [future/habitual inchoative]) aspect. They claim...
the perfect aspect. Another postverbal particle kay marks the inchoativeaspect. The two particles can stack together to form an "inchoative perfect", so...
(着; 著), which marks the inchoativeaspect, or need for change of state, in imperative sentences. Compare the imperfective aspect marker zhe in the section...
beginning an action, changing into a condition, an inchoative marker. Compare Latin verbs with similar inchoative SC markers nosco " get to know" from gno-sco...
the subframe Being_born. Causative and Inchoative: These two relations mark, for causative- and inchoative-aspect frames, the separate stative frame they...
occurrences. Instead, already and liao are markers of perfective and inchoativeaspect, and can refer to real or hypothetical events in the past, present...
in aspectual constructions, mai for continuative aspect ("going on") and atu for inchoativeaspect ("coming to be"). The Vanuatu language Lenakel has...
suffixes, łe- and kowa-. łe- means 'finally', and kowa- marks the inchoativeaspect, translated here as 'it starts'. khuhn- is also inflected for the...
grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive...
adjectives. Continuous and progressive aspectsInchoative verb Bhat, D.N.S. (1999). The prominence of tense, aspect and mood. John Benjamins. pp. 53–56....
do-ndɨ-chú 1/PRF-ndɨ-scared "I got really scared" Other affixes express inchoativeaspect, instrumental function or purpose. There is also a suffix with the...
many languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense, aspect, mood, and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender or number...
-iss- or -ïss- in much of their conjugation is a reflex of the Latin inchoative infix -isc-/-esc-, but does not retain any aspectual semantics. The third...
do-ndɨ-chú 1/PERF-ndɨ-scared "I got really scared" Other affixes express inchoativeaspect, instrumental function or purpose. There is also a suffix with the...
and la "she" (compare li "s/he"), the ge- (completive) and eg- (inchoative) aspects, fin- "to finish" and nif- "to begin", and graf- "to write" and farg-...
with a group of X' mya- : used to derive various verbs min- : derives inchoative verbs (Bunun loan?); 'become an X' or 'become like an X' (with kinship...
Seriative – interconnected series of successive separate & distinct acts Inchoative – focus on beginning of non-locomotion action Reversionary – return to...
around four iterations. This is the basic, citation form of the verb. inchoative "to get sick, to take sick" is made with a single straight movement to...
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