Aorist never codes an open situation? - To Kimmo

CWestf5155 at aol.com CWestf5155 at aol.com
Tue Dec 19 11:43:36 EST 2000


In a message dated 12/19/2000 1:41:44 AM Mountain Standard Time, 
kimmo at kaamas.kielikone.fi writes:

> Thanks, Cindy, for clarification. This is what I meant when I said that his 
> view of aspect is too subjective. He calls the aorist perfective. If he 
says 
> that perfective does not say anything about the situation, if it is 
> completely subjective and related only to grounding and perhaps other text 
> linguistic matters, then here I must part company (this is how I understood 
> his dissertation, please correct me if you think I understood him wrong). I 
> know he is not the first to espouse such a view, but I prefer the 
denotative 
> view of the meaning of aspect. As a matter of fact, I have not heard of an 
> aspect language where aspect does not regularly affect truth conditions (
> Vendler's classic illustrates this with English). Why would ancient Greek 
> aspect be different? Would it still be aspect?
>  
>  I do appreciate his meticulous study, but some of his presuppositions and 
> methodology I find unconvincing.
>  

I see what you are saying.  Forgive me if I'm getting it wrong, but your 
objections seem to be drawn from Porter calling the Aorist 'background', 
whereas others may refer to it as the 'backbone' of the discourse, in that, 
for instance, it gives the main storyline of the discourse.  

Actually, Porter also believes that the Aorist gives the main storyline of 
the discourse, and that it does contribute truth propositions--in fact, he 
describes it that way. This problem comes from a difference in the definition 
of background--and I do believe that we may see some vocabulary shift (but 
not an ideological shift) here at some point in the future. 

Porter calls the aorist the default tense--it is used most often for the main 
story line or for description.  It is the 'unmarked' tense--what is normally 
expected.  That is what he means as background, and I actually would like to 
stick to the word 'ground' rather than background, which are really two 
different concepts. That is, you could tell a whole story in the aorist tense 
and it would not be marked.  The use of the aorist 'grounds' the other 
tenses, so that when they occur in story telling, they stand out as forming 
some function.  Of course, you could tell a whole story in the present, but 
that would be marked--emphatic.  It is emphatic because it isn't the aorist. 
If you told a whole story in one of the other tenses, it would be 
stranger--unexpected--marked.

So the aorist will often form the storyline of a pericope.  In that sense, 
the aorist forms the backbone of the storyline.  But at the discourse level, 
you look for the ''point"/high level clause/ of the story in marked places. 
Markedness goes far beyond the verbal system, so it could be marked by 
occurrences other than a shift in tense.

At the discourse level (global), what some call the backbone or the figure 
occurs in those marked places.

So, to summarize, in vocabulary, Porter has called ground or grounding 
background and has called figure frontground--and then there is the middle 
foreground.  All of this describes markedness and grounding rather than the 
literary concepts that most people associate with those terms.

Now with apologies to Mark, who I wrote off list, and anyone else who wants 
to interact, I'll resume lurker status. I'm sure that no one will be 
'satisfied' with this 'little' bit, but I do like to clarify when I can.

Cindy Westfall
PhD Student University of Surrey at Roehampton



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