In my previous posts, I talked about translating English verbs with different tenses to Filipino. Strictly speaking, instead of tense, the Filipino language has what linguists would call the verbal aspect. The verbal aspect indicates whether an action or event has begun, is still in progress, has been completed, or has yet to begin. This is accomplished by changing the root word by reduplication and affixation. According to Maria Sheila Zamar in Filipino: The Essential Grammar (2023), the four aspects of Filipino verbs are infinitive, completed, incompleted, and contemplated. Schachter and Otanes in Tagalog Reference Grammar (1972) identify the three aspects of the Tagalog verb system as perfective, imperfective, and contemplated. However, according to Ramos and Bautista in Handbook of Tagalog Verbs: Inflections, Modes, and Aspects (1986), the infinitive form of the verb (the imperative form of the verb) does not imply an aspect. In Filipino, these three aspects of…