The present tense (Afrikaans presens), consisting of one or more base forms of the verb, is not specifically marked for aspect, but may be employed inter alia to express durative (progressive) (2a) or habitual (2b) aspect,e.g.

Its passive corollary, periphrastically expressed by word become plus past participle, is more markedly durative than the perfect formed by is am, is, are plus past participle. In both instances a habitual interpretation is possible.

The Afrikaans “simple past”, consisting of the auxiliary het have, has plus past participle (is am, is, are plus past participle in the passive) is traditionally referred to as a perfect tense (Afrikaans perfek or perfektum). In Afrikaans, however, no formal distinction is made between a simple and a continuous past. The claim by Bybee (1994:83) that if a past tense construction in a given language does not have an imperfective corollary as in the case of was drinking vs drank in English, it can only be a simple past, leads Breed (2016:70, note 10) to the conclusion that Afrikaans, which only has het gedrink have, has drunk to express simple or continuous past, has no perfective construction. (Note that the perfect is not to be confused with perfective aspect.)

The (a)-examples in (4) to (6) below are all perfect tense, expressing a simple past in the active or passive; the (b)-examples all express present tense. None of these sentences is marked for a particular aspect. In no instance a construction in an (a)-sentence is related to one in a (b)-sentence in what might be referred to as anterior or perfective aspect, in other words there is no temporal continuum between het plus past participle and het plus adjective in (4), or is plus past participle and is plus adjective in (5) and (6). In fact, as a spin-off of the regularisation of past participles Afrikaans has developed morphological – and in some cases semantic – differentiation between regularised past participles (in the (a)-sentences) and departicipial adjectives, e.g. gebreek(te)/gebroke broken, gebind(e)/gebonde bound, gesoek(te)/gesogte looked for / coveted, gewaag/gewaagd dared / daring, geseën / geseënd blessed, etc.

As a periphrastic construction, the perfect is deictically marked as distal (simple past tense; modal counterfactuality) in relation to the present or factuality, but not aspectually in relation to the present. The perfect may however express completion, perfectivity or termination through adverbial modification (e.g. klaar already) or by means of the Aktionsart (lexical character) of the verb in question (e.g. afmaak shrug off):

The preterite (or imperfect) form was was, were and the modal preterites sou would, moes must, kon could and wou wanted to are frequently used in Afrikaans. When not expressing modal senses, the modal preterites are employed as simple past tense forms and do not express imperfectivity or other aspectual values, e.g.

There is one residual construction in Afrikaans with a double time reference that merits the aspectual description of anteriority, namely is am, is, are plus a directional adverbial or prepositional phrase. This resembles the perfect of the Dutch mutative or unaccusative construction with gegaan gone as past participle and zijnbe as auxiliary and expressing movement or change, but differing from the Dutch construction through obligatory ellipsis of the past participle gegaan gone. This gives rise to a contrast between a perfect expressing a simple past, not marked for aspect (9a), a present perfect with anterior aspect (9b) and a perfect expressing terminative aspect by virtue of the addition of the adverb al already (9c).

(10a) below is the Dutch equivalent of (9a), and (10b) of (9b):

While (9a) expresses no more than an event or occurrence some time in the past, (9b) represents an (immediate) past still relevant to the present (‘… and that is where they presumably are right now’) and (9c) indicates an action in the past with specific reference to its completion. While in the case of the (9c) construction the link with the moment of speaking is explicitly severed, the construction in (9b) refers at the same time to a situation at the moment of speaking and the event leading up to it, or anterior (from Latin ante before) to it, and therefore as a construction closely resembles the English present perfect. (9b) would both serve as a reply to “Where have they gone?” and “Where are they?” thus maintaining a causative link between a past action and the present of the speaker.

A construction displaying anterior aspect is therefore defined here as a construction with simultaneous reference to two temporal phases of a single event. Thus while anterior aspect is explicitly present in English have plus past participle constructions (the present perfect and to a smaller or greater extent in the Dutch perfect, viz. hebben/zijn plus past participle), it only features in Afrikaans as a remnant in the is plus directional adverbial construction (with the elliptic past participle gegaan gone).  

Breed (2016:75), following Comrie (1981), demonstrates how four anteriors may be formed in Afrikaans, though only distinguished through adverbial additions: (11a) (adapted) a resultative anterior, (11b) an experiential anterior, (11c) an anterior of persistent situation, and (11d) an anterior of recent past.