[B-Greek] simple test *AURION HLQON

Ken Penner pennerkm at mcmaster.ca
Wed Dec 14 10:33:55 EST 2005


Dear Rolf,
(see responses interspersed below)

> When you tell that you use "speech time" instead of "deictic 
> center" the
> readers can understand your terminology. In my model that will create
> confusion.  Speech time is always the time of speaking or 
> writing, but that
> is not always the vantage point. In 1) below the vantage 
> point is not speech
> time but "tomorrow". Comrie would call 1) "relative tense". 
> In order to
> distinguish between these situations I use "deictic center".
> 
> 1) When I come tomorrow, Rita will already have arrived.

In my view, "tomorrow" is not the deictic centre; it is the reference time
(R) for the first clause ("come"). (In this clause, R totally includes E;
R>S; E=R; E>S.)
The "when" sets the reference time for the second clause (Rita's arrival):
The event time of the first clause (the coming) is the reference time for
the second clause. (In this clause, R does not overlap E; R>S; E<R; the E:S
relation is ambiguous, but pragmatically probably E>S).
What you are calling "vantage point" here is the reference time.

> But it is important
> that we do not think "English" but that we think linguistics. 

Fair enough.

> In my view, a failure to distinguish between event time as
> non-deictic time and tense as deictic time, will inevitably 
> confuse tense and aspect.

Doesn't deictic simply mean relating one time to another (Comrie, Tense,
14)? Yes, tense expresses the sequence relation between two times, so is
deictic. And event time is only one thing, not a relation between two
things, so it cannot be "deictic." What I don't understand is what advantage
is there in pointing this out? How are we better off remembering this?

> >> 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 2) the tense (the
> deictic time) is past. By the use of the participle I make 
> visible a small
> sequence of progressive action after the beginning and before 
> the end. Is
> this some kind of real, objective time distinguished from 
> tense and event
> time? Not at all! I am making visible a small sequence of 
> event time. I have
> a purpose with the use of the imperfective aspect, namely, to 
> signal that
> this past singing action had not reached its end when I 
> "pointed my finger
> at it" and intersected it.

It took me a long time to figure out what you meant by "make visible," since
time cannot be "seen." I think I understand now. If I understand you
correctly, the part of the event "made visible" is what I would call the
part of event occurring at reference time. I think (but am not sure) that
your expressions "pointed my finger at it" and "intersected" are different
ways of saying "made visible." 
In the section of your dissertation entitled, "To make meaning visible", you
have a note: "The definition of communication as "making things visible for
the reader/listener" is based on Psycholinguistic principles as far as words
are concerned, and it is based on the interplay of event time and reference
time, as far as aspects are concerned." A reference for this use of
"visible" would be helpful.

It is also not clear to me how the terms "focus" "angle" apply to events.
Let me try to express what I understand of your terms. 

"Focus" appears to be another word for "the part of the event made visible"
(i.e., reference time). 

"Quality" of focus appears to mean whether the reference time encompasses
the event time, or the event time encompasses the reference time. It
addresses the question, "how much of the event occurs at reference time: all
or some?" This is comparable to what I call aspect, and you do note that
English aspect expresses "quality of focus".

"Breadth" of "focus" appears to mean the relative size of the reference time
span compared to the event time span. It also addresses the question "how
much of the event is occurs at reference time: most of the event, or very
little of the event?" It seems to me that "breadth" is only applicable when
the "quality" is "close-up" (imperfective).

Judging from the diagrams regarding imperfective aspect, the "angle" of
"focus" apparently means the sequence and distance relationship between the
midpoint of the event time and the reference time. 
"Angle of focus" seems to address the question "what phase of the event is
occurring at reference time: beginning, middle, end?". But I am not sure
about this interpretation because the diagram for the perfective ingressive
has the reference line (b) begin after the event time. So I am confused as
to what locates this point (b), the beginning of the line denoting reference
time. 

> Reference time can be compared to the lense of a camera 
> threough which we
> focus on a part of a sitution.
> 
> In English the signals given by the interplay of the tenses 
> and aspects are
> clear. Thus 4) is a combination of past tense and the 
> perfective aspect.
> This means that the event occurred before the deictic center, 
> which in this
> case coincides with speech time, and that it was completed at 
> reference
> time.

> 4) I had eaten breakfast

Are you equating "perfective aspect" with "completed at reference time"?
Isn't this what Comrie objects to when he says perfective is "complete", not
"completed" (Aspect, 18)?

Yes, 4) is past tense ("had," not "have"), perfective aspect ("eaten," not
"been eating"), AND relative past tense ("had eaten," not "ate"). It is the
combination of relative past and perfective that indicates the event was
completed at reference time.

> I am not sure what you mean by "reference frame". Could you 
> please define
> what you mean by "reference frame R". 

By "reference frame" I mean the same thing as "reference time." I use
"frame" instead of "time" only to remind the reader that the reference time
can be a span, not just a point. Reichenbach's remains the most lucid
explanation of reference time I have seen.

> >> 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.
> 
> I do not understand what you mean. It seems that you use 
> "relative tense" 
> different from what comrie and I do. Perhaps I have not made 
> visible enough
> information to give a clear picture of this particular side 
> of my model. I
> will again use the same clauses as above, now as 5) and 6). 
> Example 5) is a
> combination of past tense and the imperfective aspect. The 
> verb "was" makes
> visible that the event is past related to the deictic center 
> (here, speech
> time), but what does the participle make visible? A small 
> part of singing in
> progression.  Comrie defines relative tense as a situation 
> when the deictic
> center is another time than speech time (as is the case in 1) 
> above. 

Where does Comrie define relative tense in terms of the deictic centre? I
wonder if you are confusing "deictic centre" with "reference time" (as
Comrie does; compare Tense, 36 with Tense, 56)? Comrie (Tense, 124-125) has
relative tense as the relation between E and R. He specifically says
relative tense involves a reference point R that is NOT anchored to any
deictic centre (Tense, 125). "relative tense refers to a tense which does
NOT include as part of its meaning the present moment as deictic centre"
(Tense, 36, emphasis mine). This confusion regarding what is meant by
"deictic center" is one of the reasons I prefer to avoid the term. In your
view, can reference time ever fall entirely outside of event time, without
intersecting it? I wonder if you call "deictic center" what I call
"reference time" when it falls outside of event time.
I would find it helpful to read your direct response to Reichenbach; your
comments on Reichenbach in your dissertation do not address his views
directly, and use Olsen's terminology instead of Reichenbach's own (calling
the deictic center C is not part of Reichenbach's or Comrie's model). I can
send a scan if you don't have it available there.

> There
> is no shift of deictic center in 5), but my intersection of 
> event time by
> reference time reveals an event that continues. Thus, in 
> English (but not in
> Greek), tense relates an event to a deictic center and aspect signals
> whether the event was in progression or not at reference 
> time. There is no 
> shift of
> deictic center in 6), but the perfective aspect signals that 
> the event was
> completed at reference time.
> 
> 5) Philemon was singing in the bath room.
> 
> 6) Philemon has sung in the bathroom.

> 1. Both aspects make a part of a sitution visible, but the 
> perfective aspect 
> can make the whole situations visible.
> 
> 2. The imperfective aspect makes details visible, but not so 
> the peerfective
> one.
> 
> 3. The imperfective aspect makes a small part visible, while 
> the perfective
> one makes a greater part visible.
> 
> 4. The imperfective aspect can include either beginning or end, the
> perfective aspect can include both beginning and end.
> 
> 5. Both aspects can be bounded and unbounded.
> 
> 6. The imperfective aspect can make visible a part before the 
> beginning
> (conative situtions), and a part of a resultant state (resultative
> situations), but not so the perfective aspect.

Thank you for this summary and for the opportunity to try to understand your
thinking.

Ken Penner
Ph.D. (cand.), Religious Studies, 
Biblical Field (Early Judaism major)
McMaster University
Hamilton, Canada
pennerkm at mcmaster.ca
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