Aspect in Ancient Greek - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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84 Chapter 4. An analysis of aoristic and imperfective aspect≡el steal(e)τ(e) ⊆ t TTt TT ≺ nHere, the topic time is denoted by the adverbial χθέ̋ echthes ‘yesterday’. 5(109) specifies that (108) is true iff the whole stealing eventuality takes placeon the day before Comatas’ utterance, which is the desired result. Figure 4.4represents this graphically.t TT : the day before nτ(e): the stealing of the skin-coatFigure 4.4: Graphical representation of (109)This concludes my discussion of the processual and completive interpretations.We have seen that they follow directly from the proposed semantics ofimperfective and aoristic aspect, respectively. In the remainder of this chapterI will show that with some additional principles and mechanisms we can alsoderive the other interpretations.4.4 Selectional restriction of the aoristThe semantics of the aorist proposed in the previous section does not in itselfaccount for the complexive interpretation of aoristic aspect (completion withunbounded predicates). This may come as a surprise given that it can dealwith the completive interpretation (completion with bounded predicates), aswe have seen. The reason for this lies in the conceptualisation of eventualitiesthat I am forced to assume given my definition of stativity and boundedness.Like Krifka (see section 3.2.2), I am obliged to accept non-maximal eventualitieswith respect to a predicate as eventualities of this predicate (otherwise,all predicates would be bounded). Aoristic aspect states that there is an eventualitye to which the predicate applies whose runtime is included in the topictime. For bounded predicates this entails that the maximal, that is, completeeventuality is included in the topic time, since eventualities in the extension ofa bounded predicate are by definition maximal with respect to the predicate.This entailment does not hold for unbounded predicates. An eventuality inthe extension of an unbounded predicate need not be maximal with respect to5 This is a simplification. See Reyle et al. (2007:578–582) for a discussion of the temporalrelations involved in the semantics of time-frame adverbials such as yesterday.
4.4 Selectional restriction of the aorist 85the predicate, and, hence, from the existence of an eventuality that makes anunbounded predicate true and that is included in the topic time, it cannot beconcluded that the maximal eventuality is included in the topic time as well.This is illustrated on the left-hand side of Figure 4.5. The dotted line indicatesthe possibility of a larger eventuality to which the predicate applies.aoristimperfectivetopic timeeventuality time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Figure 4.5: Aorist and imperfective with unbounded predicatesSo, on the basis of its semantics (101b) we would expect that the aoristcan also be used if the maximal eventuality includes the topic time, as longas some eventuality of the right kind is included in the topic time. This,however, is not the case. Hence, for the interpretation of completion withunbounded predicates, the semantics of the aorist (101b) does not suffice. Theinterpretation we want to get is that the maximal eventuality is included inthe topic time, whereas the semantics gives us only that some eventuality isincluded in the topic time.This problem can be solved by restricting the aorist to bounded predicates.This means that if the aorist is confronted with an unbounded predicate, a coercionoperator comes into play that maps the unbounded predicate onto abounded one. In the next section we will see that one of these coercion operators,the maximality operator, yields the complexive interpretation. ThereI will also show that a restriction of the aorist to bounded predicates at thesame time explains the restriction of the ingressive interpretation of the aoristto unbounded predicates.The right-hand side of Figure 4.5 shows that for imperfective aspect thesemantics given in (101a) is enough to yield the processual interpretation, evenwith unbounded predicates. For it may be that the eventuality that includesthe topic time is not maximal with respect to the predicate, but this makes nodifference for the interpretation: the maximal eventuality will also include thetopic time, so we still get the interpretation that the eventuality is going on.Now that I have shown that the semantics of the aorist (101b) is not enoughto account for the data and argued that adding an aspectual class restrictionwould be useful, it is time to ask where this restriction comes from. What is
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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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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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