The Collaborative International Dictionary
Continuative \Con*tin"u*a*tive\, n. [Cf. F. continuatif.]
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(Logic) A term or expression denoting continuance. [R.]
To these may be added continuatives; as, Rome remains to this day; which includes, at least, two propositions, viz., Rome was, and Rome is.
--I. Watts. -
(Gram.) A word that continues the connection of sentences or subjects; a connective; a conjunction.
Continuatives . . . consolidate sentences into one continuous whole.
--Harris.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Of or pertaining to continuation. 2 (context linguistics English) durative. n. 1 Something that causes a continuation. 2 (context linguistics English) a durative.
Usage examples of "continuative".
As Jerry Caveney wrote about Tolkien on the Elfling list (August 3, 2000): In what seems to me typical of his creativeness and 'fun' in creating languages, he took the idea of the aorist aspect, and said, in effect, 'What if a language used the aorist to contrast present general (unlimited) actions to present continuative actions instead of using it to contrast past general actions to present continuative [as in classical Greek]?
Rather, as Caveney says, it is a "general" form, an all-purpose "present tense" that simply doesn't address the question of whether the action denoted is continuative, habitual or momentary.
English very often employs the active participle to express the meaning of a continuative tense, combining the participle with a copula like "is" or "was", e.
If so, we could have constructions like nai tÃras "be it that (s)he is watching" = "I hope (s)he is watching" (with the present or continuative tense of tir- "watch"), nai hirnentes!
In the very last version of the Markirya poem, Tolkien replaced one of the participles with what would seem to be a continuative stem: As is evident from Christopher Tolkien's annotation in MC:222, his father altered nurrula "mumbling, murmuring" to nurrua.
Here, the continuative stem in effect functions as a participle (still meaning "mumbling"), and the revision actually seems quite pointless, but at least Tolkien gave away that the ending -a may be added to a U-stem verb.