Abstract
This paper deals with the Italian periphrastic passive and its auxiliaries venire and essere from an aspectual point of view, based on the Czech language. After a short summary of the main differences between Czech and Italian regarding the notion of verbal aspect and periphrastic passive, it analyses a generally expected claim that in the present tense passive constructions containing the auxiliary venire should be translated into Czech with a higher incidence of imperfective verbs than of passive constructions containing the auxiliary essere.
This trend should not be found in the simple past tense or in the imperfect tense. The analysis confirms a difference in the present tense, but does not confirm its absence in the past tenses.
Moreover, the difference between the two auxiliaries is even more apparent in the imperfect tense.