Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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162 Chapter 7. Comparison to theories in Classicsance, the present tense would indicate that the moment donné is (or overlapswith, or includes) the moment of utterance. Since the aorist situates the eventualitybefore the moment donné, and hence with the present tense, beforethe utterance time, this predicts that there would be many cases in whichthe present-aorist form can be used (viz. for all kinds of eventualities in thepast; the situation is represented graphically in Figure 7.2). Hence we cannotexplain the absence of this form in terms of a very restricted use.utterance timemoment donnéeventuality timeFigure 7.2: The second tense option and the lack of a form for present-aoristThe same holds for the first tense option, although here the situation issomewhat more complicated. The situation is represented graphically in Figure7.3. If tense would concern the relation between the eventuality time andthe utterance time, the present tense would indicate that the eventuality timeoverlaps with the utterance time. Since the aorist indicates that the eventualitytime is in the past of a moment donné, there are again many situations inwhich the present-aorist form could be used, and again, the absence of thisform cannot be attributed to a very restricted use of this form.utterance timemoment donnéeventuality timeFigure 7.3: The first tense option and the lack of a form for present-aoristOne could try to save this option by letting the utterance time include thetime of the eventuality rather than overlap with it. Then, indeed, there is atension between the semantic values of present tense and aoristic aspect, viz.the same tension that I have sketched in chapter 5 (the form present-aoristcould only be used for eventualities of very short duration), and the absenceof the form is explained. This proposal is represented in Figure 7.4.However, this revised version doesn’t work either, since it immediatelyraises the question why the eventuality time should be included in the utterancetime. Is it a contribution of the present tense or of the aoristic aspect? If it
7.2 Ruijgh’s moment donné 163utterance timemoment donnéeventuality timeFigure 7.4: The first tense option and the lack of a form for present-aorist,revised versioncomes from the present tense, then this account wrongly predicts that theredoesn’t exist a form for present tense and imperfective aspect either. If it comesfrom the aoristic aspect feature, on the other hand, the account deviates fromRuijgh’s original account, since then aspect does not only concern the relationbetween the eventuality time and the moment donné, but also that betweenthe eventuality time and some other time. The intuition of completion is nolonger captured in terms of the relation between eventuality time and momentdonné, but requires a second temporal relation to capture it. But if we havethis second temporal relation (a temporal relation that reminds us of the oneI propose for aoristic aspect), what do we need the moment donné for?I have shown that the absence of the form present-aorist cannot be explainedon Ruijgh’s analysis for aspect if we assume the first or second optionfor the semantics of tense. 5 It is explained on the third option: if the presenttense indicates that both the eventuality time and the moment donné overlapwith the moment of utterance, and aoristic aspect indicates that the eventualityis situated completely before the moment donné, there is a clash. As5 Of course, one could try to find a different kind of explanation for the absence of thisform, not in terms of a clash between semantic features. However, Ruijgh himself wants toexplain the absence in terms of such a semantic clash:Le thème d’aoriste [aoristic aspect] ne dispose pas d’un indicatif primair[present tense]. En effet, une forme constituée d’un thème d’aoristeimmédiatement suivi d’une désinence primaire exprimerait deux valeurs incompatibles:l’achèvement de l’action avant le moment présent et la présencede l’action au moment présent.(The aorist theme [aoristic aspect] does not dispose of a primary indicative[present tense]. In fact, a form made up of an aorist aspect immediately followedby a primary inflection would express two incompatible values: theachievement of the action before the moment of utterance and the presence ofthe action at the moment of utterance.) Ruijgh (1991:201)Note that this extract indeed suggests the third tense option: the present tense indicatesthat both the moment donné and the eventuality time are, or overlap with, the moment ofutterance.
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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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100 Chapter 4. An analysis of aoris
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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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