[B-Greek] simple test *AURION HLQON
Ken Penner
pennerkm at mcmaster.ca
Tue Dec 13 13:35:52 EST 2005
Rolf wrote:
> When we report an event, we tend to look at it from a certain
> vantage point,
> which often, but not always is speech time or the present
> moment. This is
> called "the deictic center", and tense (grammaticalized
> location in time) is
> seen in relation to the deictic center.
In the interests of clarity for non-technical readers, I would prefer to
dispense with the label "deictic centre" and use "speech time" if that is
what is usually meant. It seems to me that the deictic centre is rarely
shifted from speech time, and usually under specific circumstances, e.g.,
delayed communication: "I have sent you this letter..." when at the time of
writing the letter is not yet sent.
So when I read the following, I will substitute "speech time" for "deictic
centre". If you think it is important to retain "deictic centre" in your
description instead of "speech time," you could make a case for it. I was
not convinced by Olsen's.
Apart from
> instantaneous events, an
> event has a beginning and an end, and the time between the
> beginning and the
> end can be called "event time". It is important to note that
> event time can
> be described in its own right without anchoring it to the
> deictic center.
> Thus, event time represent non-deictic time.
I'm not sure event time can be totally detached from speech time in English
clauses using finite verbs. I don't see any advantage in calling event time
"non-deictic".
> Both event time and the deictic center (speech time or another time)
> represent real, objective time, but not so with the third
> concept called
> "reference time".
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by claiming that "reference time" is
not "real, objective" time. Do you mean that when I say "I had eaten
breakfast" an outside observer could note at which time I spoke and at which
time I ate breakfast, but could not know at which point I was referring to
having eaten breakfast (perhaps I meant, "BY SUNRISE, I had eaten
breakfast.")
> In order to understand this abstraction we need to
> understand what communication is, that communication means,
> from a reservoir
> of potential meaning to make something visible for the
> audience and to keep
> the rest invisible.
Let me try to unpack what I think you mean by making part of the event
visible to the audience. It seems to me that the part of the event "made
visible" is simply the time covered by the reference frame R.
> Example 1) is
> imperfective, and a small sequence of progressive action in
> the middle,
> after the beginning and before the end, is made visible. Example 2) is
> perfective, and the end of the event is made visible.
>
> 1) Philemon was singing in the bathroom.
>
> 2) Philemon has sung in the bathroom.
In 1), R covers a small part of the middle of E.
In 2), R is at speech time (S), after E.
> We can say that reference time in a way intersects event
> time, and what is
> made visible of event time by this intersection is reference
> time.
Good; I think I understood you correctly above.
> In 2)
> reference time is a point and in 1) it is a small sequence.
Right.
> Actions in English are expressed by the interplay of tense
> and aspect. The
> role of tense is to place the event before the deictic center
> (past tense),
> contemporaneously with the deictic center (present reference; no tense
> here), and after the deictic center (future tense).
I'm a bit confused by an apparent contradiction. Did you not indicate in an
earlier message that tense was the R:S relationship rather than the E:S
(event and "deictic center") relationship?
> The role
> of aspect is to
> signal whether the action was completed or not at reference
> time, at the
> point or area of time that is made visible.
Here I disagree. What you describe here is a precedence relationship between
the end-point of E and (the beginning of?) R. That would be relative tense,
in my view, not aspect.
Ken
Ken Penner, M.C.S. (Greek), M.A. (Hebrew),
Ph.D. (cand.), McMaster University
Coordinator, Funk's Grammar Digitization Project
pennerkm at mcmaster.ca
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