Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

5.6 The tragic aorist revisited 131present. The past tense feature is not interpreted: it is taken for granted inthe absence of the optimal form. As should be clear by now, we do not haveto assume an ambiguity in the semantics of the aorist to deal with this use ofthe aorist. It is the very semantics of the aorist proposed in chapter 4 thataccounts for it. Viewed this way, the tragic aorist is not a mysterious use atall.The present account establishes the link between aoristic aspect and performativitythat is missing in Lloyd’s account. As such, my account shows animprovement with respect to his. But it has a second advantage. Until now, Ihave been talking about performatives as if they are all explicit, that is, containa performative verb that indicates their force (that is, indicates whetherthe act performed by uttering the sentence is an oath, promise, warning, etc.).But it is just as possible to perform an act by uttering a sentence withoutsuch a performative verb, as Austin notices himself (Austin 1976:243ff). Touse Austin’s example, the act of warning can be performed by the use of theexplicit performative I warn you that this bull is dangerous, but also by sayingsimply This bull is dangerous. Let’s call the latter sort implicit performatives.Similarly, in Greek the act of swearing can be performed with a verb ofswearing (as we have seen in (146) and (149)) or without such a verb, as in(158): 7(158) µmaτνtēn......prt the.accΝίκηνNikēnΑθηννAthēnan......Nike.acc Athene.accοκ στινouk estinστι̋hostisσοιsoiπατρpatērnot be.prs.ipfv.3sg any.one.nom you.dat father.nomθνητν,thnētōn,τέκνον,teknonmortal.gen child.vocλλ σπερall’ hosperbut the.one.who.nomναξ.anax.lord.nom7 Another example is E. I.T. 746.ξέθρεψε,Λοξία̋exethrepse, Loxiasbring.up.pst.aor.3sg Loxias.nom