Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

158 Chapter 7. Comparison to theories in Classicsou d’un moment simplement présent dans l’esprit du locuteur. Lemoment donné est le point d’orientation.(In the case of the moment donné, it can be the present moment,the initial moment of another action mentioned in the context, ora moment that is simply present in the mind of the speaker. Themoment donné is the orientation point.) Ruijgh (1991:199)The moment donné is not an anaphor, since it often is a time that will be introducedin the following discourse rather than a time that has been introducedalready. 1A second difference between the two accounts becomes clear when we considerthe temporal relation they assign to imperfective and aoristic aspect.This temporal relation is roughly the same in case of the imperfective, as bothaccounts take the eventuality time to include the moment donné/topic time,which yields the effect that the eventuality is ‘not yet completed’. The twoaccounts assign different temporal relations to the aorist, however. To captureits value of completion, Ruijgh locates the eventuality time before themoment donné, whereas I locate it within the topic time. 2 The two proposalsare represented graphically in Figure 7.1.aoristimperfectivemy accounttopic timeeventuality timeRuijgh’s accountmoment donnéeventuality timeFigure 7.1: My account of grammatical aspect versus Ruijgh’s1 See, for example, Hettrich’s (1976) test of Ruijgh’s (1971) account, in particular, pp.33–34.2 This is clear from the following citation:Le TPr [imperfective aspect] exprime qu’à un moment donné par la situationou le contexte, l’action exprimée par le thème verbal est encore en cours. LeTAo [aoristic aspect] exprime qu’avant un MD [moment donné], l’action a déjàété achevée (ou finie).(The TPr [imperfective aspect] indicates that the action expressed by theverbal theme is still going on at a moment given by the situation or context.The TAor [aoristic aspect] expresses that the action has already been achieved(or finished) before an MD [moment donné]) Ruijgh (1985:9)