Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

Chapter 7Comparison to theories inClassics7.1 IntroductionIn this chapter I will compare the analysis of Ancient Greek aspect developedin the present work with two influential analyses proposed in the literature,by Ruijgh (1985, 1991) and Sicking (1991, 1996), respectively. My accountresembles the former in that Ruijgh and I both claim that grammatical aspectconcerns the relation between the time of the eventuality and some referencetime. Nevertheless, I will show that my account is preferable over Ruijgh’s.Sicking, on the other hand, takes a very different approach. He treatsaspect in terms of focus rather than temporal relations. The motivation forhis alternative account are examples that are problematic for any temporaltheory of aspect. I will show that although Sicking is right in pointing outthese problems, the theory he proposes cannot be upheld.7.2 Ruijgh’s moment donnéIn both my own and Ruijgh’s (1985, 1991) analysis grammatical aspect concernsthe relation between the time of the eventuality and some other time.Our accounts differ, however, in the specification of this other time. In my accountit is the topic time, in Ruijgh’s it’s what he calls the moment donné. Thedifference is not just a terminological one. As we have seen in chapter 6, mytopic time is an anaphor that binds to a previously introduced time. Ruijgh’smoment donné, on the other hand, is a different notion which he describes asfollows:Dans le cas du moment donné, il peut s’agir du moment présent,du moment initial d’une autre action mentionnée dans le contexte