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

Hallo!

Ray Brown wrote:

> What is an aorist? Basically, whatever you want it to be   :)
>
> On Sunday, July 10, 2005, at 04:37 , Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > 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  :)
Indeed, what I described is properly the aorist indicative.  There's
also an aorist subjunctive.

> > 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'.
Yeah!  The Old Albic aorist is indeed intended to work much like the
Greek aorist; when I read of "gnomic aorist", I knew I had to build
it into my language!

Another use of the Old Albic aorist is to express anteriority with
relation to another event which is not restricted to past time
reference.  An aorist can thus even refer to an event in the future!
Example (uttered during the day, before sunset):

(1) Sí   evessa            Are,    pathymi        am        matanal.
    when AOR-descend-3SG:A Sun:AGT open-FUT-1PL:A the:I:OBJ feast-OBJ
    `When the sun will have set, we will open the feast.'

How is this handled in Greek?  Does it use the aorist in such
situations as well?

And what about the aorist in Georgian?  Thomas?

> [Greek examples snup]
>
> 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).
Yes.

>       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.
Right.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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