toward a definition of Verbal Apect
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Nov 3 20:08:30 EST 2002
At 10:39 PM +0000 11/3/02, Mark Wilson wrote:
>The UNDEFINED aspect means that the action of the verb is thought
>of as a simple event, without commenting on whether or not it is a
>process.... The UNDEFINED aspect is the absence of any specific aspect.
[omitted material]
>
>Can someone help me understand the logic/reason of defining aspect
>as UNDEFINED? How can there be an absence of aspect? This seems to
>imply that aspect must have some association with verbal velocity,
>that there must be some "movement" for there to be aspect.
Without commenting on any of the rest, I'd just like to say that it appears
to me that "undefined" simply converts the meaning of "aorist/aoristic"
from a Greek-derivative to a Latin-derivative term, probably in order to
rid the term from any association with temporal considerations. A-ORISTOS =
"un-defined/un-definable" (alpha privative + hORIZW).
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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