secondary Past, usually known as Perfect: I have done (Past in present),
I had done (Past in Past, Latin Pluperfect), I shall have done (Past in Future,
Latin Futurum Exactum); secondary Future or Prospective: I am (etc.)
going to do; secondary Present or Continuous: I was doing (etc.).
   Without this modification, the tense may be said to be neutral in this
respect: e.g. Past Neutral (or Simple) I did.
   A secondary tense may itself have a modification, e.g. I had been going to
do (Future in Past in Past), I shall have been doing (Present in Past in
Future).
   An action, by whatever tense or tense-modification located, has the
theoretical possibility of being regarded either as a whole, coincident
with the point of time spoken of, or as extending further than the section
of time constituting the point spoken of.'3 for example in I was working
when he came, the first verb belongs to the latter category, the second (in
this context) to the former. These categories are what are usually termed
Aspects, Perfective and Imperfective.
   In fact, there is a definite relation between these and the tense-
modifications, and hence the latter too are often referred to as Aspect.
The Imperfective as a distinct category (the Russian "Imperfective"
is actually a Neutral form) is the same category' as the Continuous
(secondary Present) modification, since an action extending beyond
the point (see note 4) spoken of is of course present in relation to it
and (cf. below on Primary Present) vice versa. The Perfective on the
other hand is a distinctive category, not in itself identifiable with any
tense-modification, but if the reference, instead of being to the whole
process, is to the beginning or end of it, this Aspect is close to respectively
the Future modification or the Past modification (the difference
between them still being that in the Perfect and Prospective tense-
modification the time spoken of and the action are separate points,
however near, while in Aspect the time spoken of may be a point within
the action).
   So far the various types of categories have been presented in a quasi-
logical order, without any suggestion that this was the historical order in
which they arose. In fact, the evidence is that aspect was prior to tense.
We have just seen that the process referred to by Perfective may be
specifically either Future or Past in relation to the time spoken of.
Theoretically it may be one of these in any of the basic time-locations;
and in the Present, where the time spoken of coincides with the time of
speaking, since this makes the time spoken of a point without extent
(cf. note 4), with which therefore the process cannot wholly coincide,
the Perfective must be either Future or Past.

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