Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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50 Chapter 3. Aspect in formal semanticsoperatorargumentcoercion❄✲❄✲Figure 3.5: Coercionstative expression, since it is hard to think of a process that is associated withbeing tall, which explains the contrast between (70) and (71a). Following theestablished convention, henceforth sentences that are only grammatical afterreinterpretation (but not on a literal interpretation) are marked with a hashsign (#). It should be noted that the decision whether we are dealing withreinterpretation is often theory-dependent.How does all this relate to the passé simple and imparfait? The fact thatsentences in the passé simple always describe quantised eventualities whereassentences in the imparfait describe homogeneous eventualities seems to suggestthat the semantics of the passé simple and imparfait are aspectual operatorsthat map sets of eventualities onto sets of quantised and homogeneous eventualities,respectively. 19 De Swart indeed claims that the passé simple andimparfait are sensitive to the quantised versus homogeneous distinction, butshe implements this in a different way.De Swart argues that the passé simple and imparfait are not grammaticalaspects, and hence do not correspond to aspectual operators, but rather toaspectually sensitive past tense operators, that is past tense operators with restrictionson the aspectual class of their input. The semantics of passé simpleand imparfait are not functions from sets of eventualities onto sets of eventualities,but select for particular sets of eventualities, the passé simple forsets of quantised eventualities, the imparfait for sets of homogeneous eventual-19 In the spirit of Mourelatos (1981) (applied to Ancient Greek by Armstrong 1981), Bach(1986), and Krifka, with the difference that Krifka does not refer to homogeneous andquantised eventualities, but rather predicates of eventualities.
3.2 The perfective-imperfective distinction 51ities. If the input requirements are not met by the candidates, coercion comesinto play: the inputs are reinterpreted in such a way that they do satisfy therequirements. If the requirements are satisfied, the tense operators can apply.De Swart uses this idea of coercion to account for the variation in interpretationobserved for the imparfait and passé simple. Let’s see how this works.On her account, the two only make a temporal contribution in (72) and (73): 20(72) Anne é t a i t malade.Anne be.pst.IPFV.3sg ill“Anne was ill.”(73) Anne é c r i v i tAnne write.pst.PFV.3sg“Anne wrote a letter.”unealettre.letterRemember that the imparfait and passé simple are analysed as past tenseoperators. Since the input candidates of the two are of the required type(homogeneous and quantised, respectively), no coercion comes into play andhence there is no shift in aspectual class.The situation is different in the following four examples (all from de Swart1998). In these examples the requirements of the tense operators are notfulfilled: in (74) and (75) we have quantised predicates with the imparfait, in(76) and (77) homogeneous ones with the passé simple. In these cases coercioncauses an aspectual shift.(74) Un jour, je f a i s a i s mes courses chez l’ épicierOne day I get.pst.IPFV.1sg my groceries at the grocery.storequand je rencontrai Jean.when I meet.pst.pfv.1sg Jean“One day, I was shopping at the grocery store when I ran into Jean.”(75) A cette époque-là, je f a i s a i s mes courses chezIn those days I get.pst.IPFV.1sg my groceries atl’ épicier du coin.the grocery.store at.the corner“In those days, I shopped at the local grocery store.”(76) (Soudain,) Jeanne s u tla résponse.(Suddenly,) Jeanne know.pst.PFV.3sg the answer“(Suddenly,) Jeanne knew the answer.”(77) Jeanne d’Arc f u t une sainte.Jeanne d’Arc be.pst.PFV.3sg a saint20 For reasons of uniformity, I use pst.IPFV and pst.PFV to gloss the imparfait andpassé simple, respectively, even though this runs counter to de Swart’s view.
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Aspect in Ancient GreekA semantic a
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viNick Asher, David Beaver, the lat
Page 9: Contentsix8 Conclusions and discuss
Page 12 and 13: 2 Chapter 1. Introductiongroundbrea
Page 14 and 15: 4 Chapter 1. Introduction(4) µετ
Page 16 and 17: 6 Chapter 1. Introductionimperfecti
Page 19 and 20: 1.3 Organisation of the thesis 9In
Page 21 and 22: Chapter 2The interpretations of aor
Page 23 and 24: 2.3 Additional interpretations of t
Page 31: 2.5 The challenge 21scriptions of h
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134 Chapter 6. The temporal structu
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158 Chapter 7. Comparison to theori
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172 Chapter 8. Conclusions and disc
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178 Appendix A: The language of Com
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192 Appendix B: Examples spelled ou
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206 Appendix C: List of abbreviatio
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208 Appendix C: List of abbreviatio
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210 References(Eds.), Cross-linguis
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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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