Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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124 Chapter 5. Aspect and performativity: the tragic aoristproposal has its own problem, however. It does not explain why the form forpast tense and aoristic aspect is used in performatives. To clarify the problem,let me have a closer look at Lloyd’s view.If we analyse sentences with the tragic aorist as performatives, Greek hastwo ways to express performatives: with the (past tense) aorist and with the(imperfective) present tense. An example of the latter is given in (149):(149) µ ν υ µ ιomnumiswear.PRS.IPFV.1sgσέβα̋〉sebas〉worship.accθεο̋theousgod.accτεteandκλω.kluōhear.prs.ipfv.1sgΓαανGaian〈Ηλίου〈Hēliouθth’γννhagnonEarth.acc Helios.gen and holy.accπάντα̋ µµενενpantas emmeneinhaσουsouall.acc abide.in.fut.inf what.rel.acc you.gen“I swear by Earth, by the holy worship of Helios, and by all the godsthat I will do as I hear from you.” E. Med. 752-753.So, for the act of swearing, we find both the form for aoristic aspect and pasttense as in (146) and the form for imperfective aspect and present tense asin (149). Lloyd (1999:26) argues that the function of the tragic aorist is ‘todistance the speaker from the full force of the present tense performative’. Itis not clear, however, where this distancing effect of the tragic aorist comesfrom. Is it a contribution of the past tense or of the aoristic aspect feature? Inthe former scenario, it is left unexplained why we do not have a tragic (past)imperfective alongside a tragic aorist. But in the latter, it is not clear whatelement of the general meaning of aoristic aspect leads to a distancing effect inthe case of performatives. Prima facie there is no link between aoristic aspectand distancing. What is more, as Lloyd (1999:26) notes himself, it is not clearwhy the aorist should not be employed as a distancing device with other typesof verbs.In short, Lloyd’s proposal falls short to explain why aoristic aspect is used inperformatives, and hence, does not meet the second requirement for analyses ofthe use of the past aoristic form of the second person with verbs of saying, that is placedunder the same header by some grammars (e.g., Smyth 1984:432), is treated as a differentphenomenon. Moorhouse (1982:196) and Lloyd (1999:44) agree that with these forms, incontrast to the first person forms, there is (immediate) past time reference.
5.3 A semantic tension between aoristic aspect and present tense 125the tragic aorist posed above. He does not relate performativity to the meaningof aoristic aspect. In fact, he presents his analysis as opposed to analyses thattry to explain the tragic aorist in terms of aspect. In the analysis of the tragicaorist that I propose below I will follow Lloyd’s idea that the tragic aoristconcerns the use of the aorist that we find in performatives, but I will fill thegap in his account by showing that the aorist is the aspect to be expected withperformatives. In this way, my analysis meets the second requirement.Rijksbaron (2002) by and large follows Lloyd’s account in the latest editionof his book, but, in contrast to Lloyd, he does relate this use to the basic valueof completion that he assigns to the aorist. I will show that in order to givea full-fledged account of the phenomenon, we need the semantics of tense andaspect proposed in section 4.3.In what follows, I will present a revised view on the tragic aorist. Theessential ingredient in this analysis is the lack of a form for aoristic aspectand present tense in Ancient Greek. I first argue that this lack is due to atension between the semantic values of the two. Then, I show that this missingform would be the optimal form for performatives. To illustrate the specialaspectual behaviour of performatives I examine which verb forms are used inperformatives across languages. Finally, I will present the actual proposal.5.3 A semantic tension between aoristic aspectand present tenseWhy does Ancient Greek not have a form for aoristic aspect and present tense?The answer to this question will be an important ingredient of my explanationand interpretation of the tragic aorist. The short answer is that the possibilitiesof using a form for the combination of aoristic aspect and present tense arevery restricted for semantic reasons. Recall from chapter 4 (4.3) that aoristicaspect indicates that the eventuality time is (improperly) included in the topictime, and present tense that the topic time is the utterance time. From thisit follows that with the combination aoristic aspect and present tense, theeventuality time is (improperly) included in the utterance time. In other words,a clause with an aoristic present tense verb would only be true if the wholeeventuality described would occur within the utterance time (including theoption that the time of the eventuality coincides with the utterance time).This, however, is rarely the case. The exceptionality becomes even clearer ifthe utterance time is conceived of as punctual, as is often assumed (see, forexample, Paslawska and von Stechow 2003:322 and Kamp and Reyle 1993:539,514). Then proper inclusion in the utterance time is impossible, the onlyoption left being coincidence of eventuality time and utterance time, and forthis the eventuality time must be (conceived of as) punctual itself, too. Such
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Aspect in Ancient GreekA semantic a
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viNick Asher, David Beaver, the lat
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Contentsix8 Conclusions and discuss
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2 Chapter 1. Introductiongroundbrea
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4 Chapter 1. Introduction(4) µετ
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6 Chapter 1. Introductionimperfecti
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1.3 Organisation of the thesis 9In
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Chapter 2The interpretations of aor
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2.3 Additional interpretations of t
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2.5 The challenge 21scriptions of h
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24 Chapter 3. Aspect in formal sema
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3.2 The perfective-imperfective dis
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3.3 Aspectual coercion 673.3.1 Aspe
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3.3 Aspectual coercion 69bials ((88
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3.3 Aspectual coercion 71the term c
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174 Chapter 8. Conclusions and disc
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176 Chapter 8. Conclusions and disc
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178 Appendix A: The language of Com
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192 Appendix B: Examples spelled ou
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206 Appendix C: List of abbreviatio
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208 Appendix C: List of abbreviatio
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210 References(Eds.), Cross-linguis
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212 ReferencesGrice, P. (1975). Log
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214 ReferencesLemmon, E. J. (1962).
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216 Referencesvan der Sandt, R. (19
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218 References
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220 Samenvatting (Summary in Dutch)
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222 Samenvatting (Summary in Dutch)
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