Spanish has had a periphrastic perfect (analogous to the Portuguese perfect) for many centuries. It consists of a finite form of the verb ‘have’ used as an auxiliary and the perfect participle as the non-finite form of the full verb. Now Spanish has some more non-finite forms of the verb, including the gerund, which ends in -ndo and the infinitive, which ends in -r. Both of these are productively used in periphrastic constructions.
In more recent times, a relatively large set of verbs have been recruited to serve as the auxilary in such a periphrastic construction which codes diverse aspects and aktionsarten. The following table list the most prominent of these.
| category | example | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| progressive | Juan está leyendo un libro. | John is reading a book. |
| incrementive | Juan fué comprendiendo la história. | John understood the story little by little. |
| adventive | Juan viene escribiendo cuentos. | John has been writing stories. |
| constantive | Juan anda contando historias. | John is constantly telling stories. |
| continuative | Juan continuó leyendo. | John kept reading. |
| repetitive | Juan volvió a leer el libro. | John read the book again. |
| exitive | Juan acabó leyendo / por leer todo el libro. | John ended up reading the entire book. |
| recent past | Juan acababa de leer el libro. | John had just read the book. |
| habitual | Juan suele madrugar. | John usually gets up early. |
| ingressive | Juan se pone a leer un libro. | John starts reading a book. |
All of the verbs marked red in the left-hand column have been desemanticized. The source verbs are listed, in the same order as above, but in their infinitive, in the following table:
| verb | meaning |
| estar | be.LOC |
| ir | go |
| venir | come |
| andar | walk |
| continuar | continue |
| volver | return |
| acabar | end |
| soler | be used to |
| poner | put |
The lexical fields that these verbs come from are the following: estar and soler designate a static situation. Ir, venir, andar and volver designate movements. Continuar, acabar and ponerse ‘start’ (lit.: ‘put oneself’) designate phases of a situation. These are standard semantic fields of verbs which are recruited as aspect and aktionsart markers in many languages.
Reference
Quesada, J. Diego 1994, Periphrastische Aktionsart im Spanischen. Das Verhalten einer Kategorie der Übergangszone. Frankfurt/M etc.: P. Lang (Europäische Hochschulschriften, 21/44).