Mark's question on marked

Mark Wilson emory2oo2 at hotmail.com
Sun Dec 10 13:18:32 EST 2000



Can anyone help me better understand the concept of
a word being "marked" or "unmarked."

In English, for example, "plod" is marked for "slowness."
We can not rationally conceptualize plod without slowness.
I think I can understand this, but what makes a particular
"tense form" marked or unmarked? (I have read that with
some words the "aorist is the unmarked [default] tense.")

Does this simply mean, for example, that a particular verb generally
occurs in the aorist form and therefore no special meaning
should be given to it as an aorist (since it is almost
always used in the aorist)?

Thank you,

Mark Wilson






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