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Re: Gnomic aorists (was Re: Góquim)

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Saturday, August 9, 2003, 23:02
Quoting Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>:

> BTW, I wonder whether the Georgian usage is influenced by Greek. > After all, the standard of Classical Georgian is set by the Bible > translation.
Not really. Greek ceased to be a direct influence on Georgian more than a millennium ago.
> > > My Elvish lang uses the uninflected verb for that. Given its most > > > common function, a traditionalist western philologist would > > > undoubtedly named it "imperfect". > > > > I doubt it. "Imperfect" typically describes on-going actions which > > in principle have beginnings and ends. Gnomic aorists refer precisely > > to circumstances which have no beginning or end. > > What speaks against renaming it "aorist"? Is it also used as the > tense of narration (a typical functioon of the aorist)?
That only Andreas can answer. ========================================================================= Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally, Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of 1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter. Chicago, IL 60637