The aorist!!

John M. Tait jmtait at jmt.prestel.co.uk
Wed Nov 25 18:27:38 EST 1998


Jon Robertson wrote:

>With regard to the seeming similarity between the aorist and perfect 
>tenses, while there certainly is some overlap I think a major 
>difference can and should be maintained.  It seems to me that the 
>perfect is best seen as describing a "state" (much like Porter and 
>surely others have stated), while the aorist gives the "simple" (or 
>"snapshot") view of the action itself.  According to this view, then, 
>the perfect would be much more interested in the state of the subject 
>and less in the aktionsart.  The aorist would be an aspectual choice 
>of the speaker/writer to refer to the action in the most general way 
>available.
>
The explanation of the difference between perfect and aorist which I
learned was that the perfect tense is actually a present tense, referring
to the result of the past in the present (ie: present tense + perfect
aspect, its past tense being the pluperfect) and the aorist a past tense
referring explicitly to the past (past tense + aspect - decision pending
the results of this discussion!) Has this view also bitten the dust? Or
perhaps it is a different way of saying the same thing.

John M. Tait.



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