About the verbal periphrasis ir and venir + gerund in Spanish, Portuguese and Galician

Abstract

This paper deals with two verbal periphrasis with verbs of movement as auxiliars in the three languages of the Iberian peninsula, Spanish, Portuguese and Galician. It emphasizes the aspect value and compares their use in three related languages. Variations in use are almost nonexistent, but there are some minor differences in the definitions of verbal periphrasis. With ir + gerund the speaker emphasizes the progressive course and duration of action with a semantic nuance of a diffuse movement with no specific direction. The action develops gradually, slowly, which is emphasized, in addition to verbal periphrasis, with adverbials of time or manner. Venir + gerund indicates continuous, progressive action, which develops from a certain point of time-spatial area where the speaker is located. The direction of movement is therefore different from that indicated by the ir + gerund resulting from the point where there is a speaker, and is directed forward. This shade in motion is brought by verb venir/vir which indicates movement toward the speaker in Spanish, Portuguese and Galician.