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This article discusses the concept of continuative meaning, which obtains when a verb situation beginning in the past can be interpreted as still ongoing at the moment of speaking. In the Romance languages, continuative reading of a sentence is typically associated with the use of an adjunct indicating either the inception point or the duration of the focused situation. The article gives an overview of the principal markers (prepositions and preposition-like expressions) that are specialized for this function in the various Romance languages. However, the main purpose of the article is to demonstrate the existence in these languages (French excepted) of a system of postnominal markers that can be used in addition to the PP introduced by the prenominal marker, thus highlighting the continuative interpretation of the situation. These markers seem to have attracted little attention in the literature on tense and aspect in the Romance languages.
