Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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172 Chapter 8. Conclusions and discussiontragic✻conative(+ likelihood)✻lack of formaorist–presentintensionalisedversioncompletiveaorist: . . . . imperfective:τ(e) ⊆ t . . . . .TTτ(e) ·⊃ t TTrestriction forbounded predicatesduration principle i.a.❄duration principle i.a.habitual✠ ❘complexive ingressive.specification t TT.❄temporal structure of discoursecoercioncoercionprocessualFigure 8.1: Overview of the interpretations of aorist and imperfective 2
8.1 Conclusions 173with an unbounded predicate. In such cases an intervening coercion operatorsolves the mismatch between the operator and its argument. For this purposeI defined two operators: the maximality operator, which yields the complexiveinterpretation (the interpretation of completion with unbounded predicates),and the ingressive operator, which yields the ingressive interpretation. TheDuration Principle, which states that information on duration from variouslinguistic sources must be compatible, plays a crucial role in the choice betweenthese two operators. Each operator has a different effect on the durationassociated with the predicate and the reinterpretation finally chosen is onethat obeys the Duration Principle. Thus, if the topic time is short (comparedto the time associated with the predicate), an ingressive reinterpretation ischosen, since the ingressive operator shortens the time associated with thepredicate. If, on the other hand, the topic time is long, both reinterpretationsare available, but a complexive interpretation may be favoured on the basis ofa general preference for stronger interpretations.In contrast to the aorist, the imperfective operator does not impose an aspectualclass restriction on its argument. This means that it combines equallywell with bounded and unbounded predicates. Nevertheless, the DurationPrinciple is active here as well. This is due to the fact that, apart from guidingthe choice among the various reinterpretations (as it does with the aorist),the Duration Principle can also trigger reinterpretations by its own. I arguedthat in this way the habitual interpretation of imperfective aspect comes about:if the topic time is longer than the duration associated with the predicate, thismismatch is solved by the intervention of a habitual coercion operator, whichlengthens the duration associated with the predicate.For the conative and likelihood interpretations, we had to adapt our semanticsof imperfective aspect in order to avoid the so-called imperfectiveparadox. I indicated a way to do this which involves an intensionalisation ofthe semantics of the imperfective.My analysis naturally extends to the tragic use of the aorist. I have shownthat this is the use of the aorist that we find with performatives. Moreover, Ihave shown that this special use is the result of the absence of an ideal formfor such expressions. On the basis of the semantics developed for tense andaspect I demonstrated that the optimal form for performatives would be thecombination of present tense and aoristic aspect, since eventuality time andutterance time coincide here. This form, however, does not exist in AncientGreek. In absence of an optimal form, two suboptimal forms are equally good:that for present tense and imperfective aspect and that for past tense andaoristic aspect. Both forms are attested with performatives in Ancient Greek.With the former, primacy is given to the tense feature and the aspect featureis taken for granted. With the latter, it’s the other way around. The latteris what has traditionally been labelled the tragic aorist. Once we recognise
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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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Page 220 and 221: 210 References(Eds.), Cross-linguis
Page 222 and 223: 212 ReferencesGrice, P. (1975). Log
Page 224 and 225: 214 ReferencesLemmon, E. J. (1962).
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Page 230 and 231: 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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