Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

12 Chapter 2. The interpretations of aoristic and imperfective aspect(8) Κρο̋Kurosδ οπωde oupōCyrus.nom prt not.yetκεν,hēken,be.present.pst.ipfv.3sgλλall’butτιetistillπ ρ ο σ ή λ α υ ν εprosēlaunemarch.to.pst.IPFV.3sg“Cyrus was not yet present, but he was still marching on.”X. An. 1.5.12The interpretation of (8) is that the marching is not yet completed, but stillgoing on. I label this the processual interpretation of imperfective aspect. Althoughon this interpretation the imperfective is often translated into Englishwith a progressive form, the two are not identical. One of the differences isthat the former combines happily with stative predicates whereas the latterdoesn’t, as is illustrated by (9): 1(9) β α σ ί λ ε υ εebasileueδ Λυκοµήδη̋de Lukomēdēsprt Lycomedes.nomττε τνtote tōnthen the.genbe.king.pst.IPFV.3sgΣκυρίωνSkuriōnScyrians.gen“Lycomedes was at that time king of the Scyrians.” Plu. Thes. 35.6Here the eventuality of being king is not completed, but going on. Note that wehave an imperfective form (βασίλευε, ebasileue) in Greek, but a simple form(‘was king’) rather than a progressive form (‘was being king’) in English. 2Aoristic aspect, by contrast, is used for completed eventualities. This isillustrated in (10), where the handing over of the reign is completed:1 Some preliminary remarks about stativity and aspectual classes in general have beenmade in section 1.2.3. A in-depth discussion is postponed to chapters 3 and 4, in particularsections 3.3.1 and 4.2.2 βασίλευειν basileuein may be argued to be an unbounded, non-stative predicate (‘to ruleas a king’), rather than stative predicate. However, we find the same use with βασιλε̋ εναιbasileus einai, which is literally ‘to be king’ and uncontroversially stative. For example:(i)κα Περδίκκα̋ Αλεξάνδρου βασιλε̋ ατν ντεkai Perdikkas Alexandrou basileus autōn ēnhoteand Perdiccas.nom Alexander.gen king.nom they.gen be.pst.IPFV.3sg whenΣιτάλκη̋SitalkēsπήειepēieiSitalces.nom come.upon.pst.ipfv.3sg“And Perdiccas, Alexander’s son, was their (= the Macedonians’) king at the timeof the invasion by Sitalces.” Th. 2.99.6.