The delimitative aspect is a

grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...

that indicates that a situation lasts only a certain amount of time.Stephen Dickey. 2007. "A prototype account of the development of delimitative ''po-'' in Russian". In Dagmar Divjak and Agata Kochańska, ''Cognitive Paths into the Slavic Domain'', Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 329–373. It is sometimes called ''durative aspect''. Polish: ''stałem i gadałem'' – "I stood and chatted" compared with ''postałem i pogadałem'' = "I stood and chatted for a while" (the prefix ''po-'' marking the delimitative aspect in this example). Delimitative aspect in Chinese is often marked by

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...

of the verb. For details see Chinese grammar§Aspects.

References

Grammatical aspects Russian grammar {{grammar-stub