Re: THEORY: What is an aorist? (was Re: THEORY: Temporal Auxiliaries, Aspectual Auxiliaries, Modal Auxiliaries)

What is an aorist? Basically, whatever you want it to be   :)

On Sunday, July 10, 2005, at 04:37 , Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> Hallo!
>
> Ray Brown wrote:
[snip]

>> He [Trask] concludes with these words:
>> "NOTE: in view of this great terminological confusion, Comrie (1976)
>> recommends the avoidance of the term 'aorist' in linguistic theory."
>>
>> I agree with Comrie. If there is terminological confusion amongst
>> linguists themselves, then it is hardly surprising if you have found the
>> term confusing     :)
>
> Well, linguistics is riddled with confusion ;-)
Indeed - mainly I guess because (a) there are different linguistic
theories (no, we're not all Chmoskyites :)
and (b) linguists sometimes attempt to re-use conventional & traditional
terms with a strictly defined meaning, for example: 'tense', as we have
seen.

The important thing is know where the confusion.

> ObConlang: In Old Albic, there is a form I call the `aorist', which
> is a verb form marked for perfective aspect and unmarked for tense;
...which is of course, apart from the indicative mood, exactly how it is
used in both ancient & modern Greek  :)

> it is, among other uses, the commonly used narrative form and also
> used for gnomic statements.
Interesting - in ancient Greek the aorist indicative, despite it 'temporal
augment' and past tense subject endings, could also be used for gnomic
statements. This use of the aorist is known as the 'gnomic aorist'; it is
translated into English by the 'present simple'.

Before the humorists weigh in - no, a gnomic statements are not those made
by strange dwarf-like creatures (tho I shall probably be too late   ;)

If you don't know the other meaning of 'gnome', look it up.
Examples (ē is e-macron, and ō is o-macron):
1.
ēn tis         toutōn       ti           parabainēi,         zēmian
autois     ep-e-the-san.
if anyone.-NOM those-GEN.PL anything.ACC transgress-SUBJ.3S, penalty-ACC
thy-DAT.PL on-AUG-put.AOR-3PL.
if anyone of those people trangess in any way, _they impose_ a penalty on
them.  [Xenephon]

2.
   mi'   hēmera      ton      men     kat-heil-en      hypothen,     ton
d'    ēr-a           anō.
one-NOM day-NOM the-ACC.SING MEN down-AUG.take.AOR-3S from-above, the-ACC.
  DE AUG.raise.AOR-3S up.
One day brings a person down from on high, and raises another person up.
[Euripdes]
Note:
i. MEN......DE are correlative particles, that come after the words they
contrast. 'men'...'de' could be translated as 'on the one hand'.....'on
the other hand' - but the English a bit more longwinded!
ii. The augments have been combined with the initial vowel of the aorist
stem in both verbs; also one uses the 'strong' endings and the other 'weak'
  endings - but that's another story  ;)

3.
athymountes andres oupō    tropaion estēsan.
dienheartened men  not-yet trophy   rasised = disenheartened men never
raise a trophy.    [Plato]

Yes, IMO there is no problem in using the term 'aorist' for a feature in
an individual language, if the term is explained (and its use is no too
dissimilar to traditional uses). But to use 'aorist' as a general
linguistic term is confusing, because there is no consistent meaning given
to the word - therefore IMO it is best avoid, as Comrie said.

Ray
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