Punctual Verbs

Verbs can be divided into many different categories. These categories include transitive, intransitive, regular, irregular and phrasal. Another category of verbs is punctual verbs.

Punctual verbs refer to a single event that by its nature ends quickly. Events such as blink, cough, flash, hit and sneeze can end in less than one second. However, when the events occur in continuous tense, they communicate repeated activity. The sentence the light flashed could mean that the light went on and off just once, but the light was flashing could only mean that it went on and off repeatedly. He is chewing very carefully implies that he has chewed more than once.

Punctual verbs are one of the many categories of verbs. Due to their nature of very brief activity, the continuous tense is needed to make them express an activity of duration. When they are used in simple past, they can refer to one event or to a repeated one. In this case punctual verbs are ambiguous.