Lexical aspect in English
The six verbs BEGIN/START, CONTINUE/KEEP and STOP/FINISH are among J. R. Firth's (1968 122) 'verbs of aspect' and can be described in terms of three aspectual features (Lyons (1977: 707) Inception begin start Progressivity continue, ke ep and Termination (s top, fini sh) The difference between be gin and st art is subtle, but a study of a number of features indicates that b egin suggests initiation only, while start suggests initiation with progressivity. Both continu e and ke ep indicate progressivity, but c ontinue suggests progressivity with resumption (of a situation already in progress) while keep suggests progressivity with iteration. Similarly, s top and fi nish both indicate termination but s top suggests termination at any point in a situation, while fi nish relates to termination with completion (of the situation) There is a brief consideration of three more marginal verbs: comm ence, ce ase and quit