I hope the Russian is better, since the
English is often confusing – ambiguous at least, contradictory
occasionally. Herewith a stab at systematizing many of these items –
and a few more.
Tense properly speaking: the reference
moment placed with respect to the moment of speech and the event
placed with respect to the reference moment. Lojban – and every
other language I know of – is defective in forms for this and
collapses various distinctions. Lojban has only does not distinguish
the two relations, reference/speech and reference/event, as a rule,
except by implication. Thus, {pu} may be either past tense (RP) or
present retrospective (P-), On the other hand, more complicated
(though often more opaque) tense forms are possible: {pupupu}, which
exceeds normal tense capabilities (though {pu fu fu} does not).
More or less from past to future: RP-
RP RP0 RP+ (recalled) {pupu. pu, pu, puba}
RAP- RAP RAP0 RAP+ (recalled
anticipated) {pubapu, puba, puba, pubaba}
P- P P0 P+ {pu, ca, ca, ba}
AP- AP AP0 AP+ (anticipated) {bapu, ba, ba, baba}
The vectorless forms seem to correspond
loosely the notion (which is not normally tense nor aspect) of a
perfective form, used without explicit mention of a temporal context
other than the axis (reference).
Many familiar languages (well, to me
anyhow) use use some A forms for subjunctives, to the delight of
certain tense logicians.
Contour aspect: the reference moment
placed with respect to the progress of the event described.
Inchoative: before the beginning but
the event “present in its causes” as it were maybe a state or
process or activity, typically a process building to {pu'o}
(related to +vector)
Initiative: at the beginning, strictly
an achievement, but taken with a bit before and a bit after as an
enduring event, though not aspectually. {co'a}
Continuative/progressive: event goes on
on either side of the reference point {ca'o) (related to 0vector)
Perfect: after the event is over but
the effects linger “present in its effects” {ba'o} (related to
-vector)
Three stoppings, all strictly
achievements but, when possible (i.e. when lexical not inflectional)
extended to both sides:
Completive: (for processes only,
strictly speaking) event finished. {mo'u}
Cessitive: stopped, no commitment to
take up again {co'u}
Pausitive: stopped but to be taken up
(may not be, of course) {de'a} and so
Resumptive: taking up again, even if
not committed to {di'a}
Superfective: event continuing after
its natural end {za'o}
Distributive 'aspect'; For events that
may recur, how their recurrences are distributed in time
(I suppose there should be an infactive
for an event that doesn't occur at all, but we start with)
Semelfactive: occurs only once {paroi}
Recurrent: occurs PA times {Paroi}
individual occurrences are ordered by {PA re'u}
Recurrences may be
Regular {di'i} in some sense and in
particular:
Continuous {ru'i}
Habitual {ta'e}
Typical {na'o}
And now we are clearly a long way from
where we started. I am not at all sure what to do with the rest of
the items on the cited list.
As I have said, perfective seems to be
incompatible with contour aspects, which imply that the event
described has a beginning middle and end. Tense, however, do allow
events to be collapsed to points. In any case, Lojban does appear to
have a marker for this notion {co'i}, though th4 example is fairly
obscure.
Telic, momentane, and stative seem to
be just the defining properties of processes, achievements and states
rather than added features applicable across the board.
Instantaneous and punctual also appear to belong here – for
achievements again, Maybe imperfective in the sense here (separate
from perfective apparently) is characteristic of activities.
Retrospective and prospective are –
and + vectors or perfect and inchoative aspect but outside their
proper systems, with some distinctions between processes and
activities and states.
The next cluster seems to be
refinements of distributive aspect, including special cases for
sifferent kinds of events, again.
So of these may be event-internal
distinctions (which I tend to think of as lexical), the one blow of
“hit' and the repated blows of “beat”, for example, but I am
not sure which of these is meant to be this and which is meant to be
about one or several occasions (distribution).
The point of the next group also
escapes me: experiential doesn't fit anywhere and accidental and
intentional contrast but seemingly in a lexical way (defective seems
to fit in here to – and where then is attemptive for trying,
presumably in at least two versions depending on success?).
Gnomic looks to be a speech-act marker
(which may encompas some of those special distribution aspects as
well)
I think what has happened here is that
the local idioms of ozens of languages have been elevated to logical
categories and then some attempt has been made to find a logic for
them. Something like the durative, for example, reeks of a language
which uses a special verb form (say) when a particular time form is
used, rather that just allowing a time form to be hooked on to a
neutral form. I don't if there is such a language, but the advocacy
of this separate notions suggests that there is and that people for
whom such a language is L1 helped compile the list (that is
demonstrably the case for the perfective / imperfective pair).