Re: unmarked tense/aspect

On Friday, March 5, 2004, at 05:27 AM, Estel Telcontar wrote:

[snip]
> combinations together?  I understand Classical Greek distinguished
> perfective and imperfective in the past but not in the present.
Not correct - this is true of modern Russian, but not Classical Greek.
(Yes,
  I do know the Slav 'perfective' is more like the ancient Greek 'aorist'
aspect than the ancient Greek perfective  :)

Ancient Greek most certainly had a present indicative perfective tense. It'
s known in traditional grammars as "the perfect tense" but it has an
essentially _present_ meaning, unlike the 'perfect tense' in Latin (which
could have a present meaning but more often had a past meaning). It was
also essentially _stative_ in it's meaning: it denoted a present state of
affairs which had resulted from some past action.

Ancient Greek inherited a three aspect system from PIE, formed on three
verbal stems:
- the so-called 'present stem', for tenses, moods, participles and
infinitives of the impefective aspect.
- the aorist stem, for tenses, moods, participles and infinitives of the
aorist aspect.
- the perfect stem, for tenses, moods, participles and infinitives of the
perfective aspect.

In very early Greek, the idea of future time was expressed by subjunctive
forms, but eventually a 4th aspectual system was developed for which I'll
coin the term 'futuritive' (unless someone comes up with a 'more correct'
term) thus:
- the future stem, for tenses, moods, participles and infinitives of the
futuritive aspect.

So, with the verb 'leipo:' (I'm leaving, I'm departing) we have:
[Need monotype font to see the table properly]

			     INDICATIVE MOOD       SUBJUNCTIVE   OPTATIVE    IMPERATIVE
        		  non-past       past       MOOD          MOOD
MOOD        PARTICIPLE  INFINITIVE

IMPERFECTIVE  leipei        eleipe      lei:pe:i      leipoi
leipo:       leipo:n     leipein
ASPECT      he is leaving  he was leaving

AORIST          -            elipe      lipe:i        lipoi
lipeto:      lipo:n      lipein
ASPECT                      he left

PERFECTIVE   leloipe        eleloipei   leloipe:      leloipoi
leloipeto:   leloipo:s   leloipenai
ASPECT       he has left    he had left
          [& is now not here]

FUTURITIVE    leipsei           -         -
leipsoi       -          leipso:n     leipsein
ASPECT       he will leave

It will be seen that the futuritive did not develop subjunctive and
imperative mood forms as the other aspects did.

Most of this has now gone in the modern language. The perfective &
futuritive forms have gone completely, leaving only a contrast between
imperfective and aorist aspects (which have both developed analytically
futures); the optative mood has disppeared also and the subjunctives have
merged with the indicative. The infinitives has gone completely and there
is only one active, indeclinable participle (probably better called a
'gerund' but AFAIK never is) and one declined participle for the passive.

Ray
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