Re: Aorist

At 01:25 PM 3/21/2000 -0300, Pablo wrote:
>My ideas so far:
>
>Present:
>         vange  'I am eating', 'I eat'
>vagiath yl si  'I have eaten' <- *'Eaten by-me there-is'
>
>  vagiis ei si  'I am eating' (focus on progressive aspect)
>                 <- *'Eating I there-is'
That's an interesting way to express those, using there-is plus a participle.


>Past:
>          vagen  'I was eating'
>vagiath yl sin  'I had eaten', 'I ate (and finished)'
>  vagiis ei sin  'I was eating'
>
>Aorist:
>           avage 'I used to eat', 'I ate'
I'm not sure if 'used to' would work for an aorist, since aorist is a
punctual action. 'I used to eat' sounds to me more of a habitual
past/perfective. (In Spanish class I learned that 'used to' is often
translated with the imperfect in Spanish.)

>vagiath yl isi  'I used to eat (not anymore)'
>  vagiis yl isi  'I was used to eating', 'I would eat (and eat)'
Just a note about your word usage here: I think you mean 'I used to be
eating' rather than 'I was used to eating.' The first would seem to go with
the categories you show, whereas the second would mean 'I was accustomed to
eating.'

Keep up the good work :)