Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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150 Chapter 6. The temporal structure of discourse6.3.4 Temporal structure and variation in interpretationIn chapter 4 I have developed an account of how the various interpretationsof aoristic and imperfective aspect come about. In this section I will showthat this account fits naturally in the analysis of the temporal structure ofdiscourse presented in the present chapter. Actually, I have already (implicitly)been using the ideas about how the topic time of a sentence is determined inchapter 4 in accounting for the variation in interpretation, as I will show inthis section.As a first example, let’s reconsider the argument from section 4.5 whyδάκρυσε edakruse ‘cry.aor’ in (19), here repeated as (189), has an ingressiverather than complexive interpretation (recall that there must be some kind ofreinterpretation, since the aorist requires bounded predicates, whereas Xerxescry is unbounded):(189) νθατα enthauta hothen the.nomΞέρξη̋XerxēsXerxes.nomµακάρισε,emakarise,declare.happy.pst.aor.3sgωυτνheōutonhimself.accµετmetaafterδdeandτοτοtoutothat.acc δ ά κ ρ υ σ ε. µ α θ νedakruse. Mathōnweep.pst.AOR.3sg perceive.AOR.ptcp.nomΑρτάβανο̋ArtabanosArtabanus.nomτάδε ...tade: ...this.acc̋hōshow......δακρσανταdakrusantaweep.aor.ptcp.accπολλνpollonfarλλήλωνallēlōnone.other.genδέdeprtµινminhe.accε ρ ε τ οeiretoask.pst.ipfv.3sgκεχωρισµέναργάσαο νν τε καkechōrismenaergasao nun te kaiseparate.prf.pass.ptcp.acc do.pst.aor.2sg now prt prtλίγωoligōia.little.datσεωυτνseōutonyourself.accπρτερονproteron.before.µακαρίσα̋Makarisasdeclare.happy.aor.ptcp.nomδ α κ ρ ε ι ̋.dakrueis.weep.PRS.ipfv.2sgγρgarbecause“Then Xerxes declared himself happy, and after that he started toweep. Perceiving that he had begun to weep Artabanus questioned
6.3 Analysing the patterns 151him saying: ‘What a distance is there between what you are doingnow and a little while ago! After declaring yourself happy you weep.’” Hdt. 7.45-46.1In section 4.5 I mentioned as the reason for getting an ingressive interpretationin (189) that it is clear from the continuation that Xerxes is still crying at themoment of Artabanus’ utterance. What is implicit in the argument is theassumption that aoristic aspect pushes the topic time forward, an assumptionthat we have made explicit in this chapter. Let’s see how this assumptionyields the ingressive interpretation.The second clause of (189) introduces an eventuality in the discourse, e 1 inFigure 6.4, that is related to crying. It may be a maximal crying eventuality oran ingressive one. Which of the two is unknown at this point in the discourse.Since the sentence has aoristic aspect, this crying related eventuality is temporallyincluded in the topic time t TT1 . Moreover, the aoristic aspect introducesinto the discourse a time immediately following the crying related eventuality.This time t TT2 acts as topic time for the next sentence. Since the participleµαθών mathōn ‘perceive.aor’ has aoristic aspect too, following the same recipeit introduces into the discourse an eventuality e 2 included in t TT2 and a timefollowing this eventuality, t TT3 , which acts as topic time for the main clause.The saying eventuality e 3 is temporally included in t TT3 . 10 Artabanus uses apresent tense (imperfective aspect) to describe a crying eventuality e 4 , whichindicates that this eventuality temporally includes the time of his utterance.t TT1τ(e 1 )t TT2τ(e 2 )t TT3τ(e 3 )τ(e 4 )Figure 6.4: Applying the rules to (189)Let’s now return to δάκρυσε edakruse ‘cry.aor’ in the first sentence. If10 ερετο eireto ‘say’ is an imperfective form. It is a common phenomenon in Ancient Greekthat verbs of saying occur in the imperfective form where we would expect an aorist, viz. forcomplete eventualities. I return to this in section 7.3. For the present example it makes nodifference since the aorist forms δάκρυσε edakrusa ‘cry’ and µαθών mathōn ‘perceive’ pushthe time forward already.
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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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3.3 Aspectual coercion 73in the ext
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76 Chapter 4. An analysis of aorist
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Page 110 and 111: 100 Chapter 4. An analysis of aoris
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200 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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Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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