[B-Greek] simple test *AURION HLQON

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Sat Dec 17 03:37:31 EST 2005


Dear Ken,

I do not think we should continue this discussion, since it takes much time,
and it may be too technical for many list-members. But I give a few
comments below. And you are of course free to reply.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Penner" <pennerkm at mcmaster.ca>
To: "'Rolf Furuli'" <furuli at online.no>; <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:33 PM
Subject: RE: [B-Greek] simple test *AURION HLQON


> 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.

Comrie is not always clear, but I think you misunderstand him.
>
>> 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?

A basic problem in many studies of grammar is a lack of differentiation
between semantic and pragmatic factors. For example, most aorists have past
reference, and because of that some have viewed them as preterits. But the
question is whether this past refernce is caused by an intrinsic property
(semantics) or whether it is caused by the context (pragmatics). If it is
caused by the context, exactly which factor or factors are at work? This is 
a question that needs to be studied.

Event time can be described in its own right without anchoring it to a
deictic center. By using the label "non-deictic" I stress that.  Moreover,
reference time is neither described in relation to a deictic center, thus,
being non-deictic. If aspect is the relation between refernce time and event
time, as I claim, aspect is non-deictic in contrast with tense. If we do not
make this distinction, our model has an in-built prejudice favoring tense,
and properties that are caused by the relationship between event time and
reference time are interpreted as tense rather than as aspect.

>
snip
>
>> 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)?

Comrie says this, and I take side with Broman Olsen in this matter against
Comrie. This is based on the view that the perfective aspect in English
solely is expressed by perfect.

> 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.

This illustrates the great differences between our approaches. I see aspect
where you see relative sense, and our use of "reference time" is completely
different. I use "reference time" as an abstract term that indicates how
communication occurs (which part of the potential of meaning that the author
causes his audience to see), and you use it for the vantage point (that I
call deictic center) that an action is related to. Please look at 1) and 2)
below. Regarding 1) I suppose we agree that the tense is past and that the
event was completed at speech time. But what are we to do with "eating"? You
would not say that this participle represents relative tense, would you? So
what is the function of this word? I would analyse it as the imperfective
aspect.  But why do we find the imperfective aspect in a clause that is
completed? I would analyse the the clause as an example where the
imperfective aspect is used together with the perfective aspect and past
tense. This means that first reference time intersects event time and make a
great part of progressive action visibile (this is the imperfective aspect).
Then reference time reaches the end of the event and signals that it is
completed (this is the perfective aspect). By these three factors past
perfect progressive is formed. In 2) we only have the perfective aspect
(reference time intersects event time at the end) together with past tense.
In this way pluperfect is made.

We can do exactly the same with future perfect, which is a combination of
the perfective aspect and future tense, as we see in 3). Future perfect
progressive is a combination of the imperfective aspect, the perfective
aspect, and future tense, as we see in 4). In my model I do not need
relative tense, because the functions of relative tense are played by the
deictic center that is pragmatically fixed.

1) I had been eating breakfast.

2) I had eaten breakfast.

3) I will have eaten breakfast.

4) I will have been eating breakfast.


>
snip

>
> 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
> Flash! Pro vocabulary software: http://s91279732.onlinehome.us/flash or
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flash_pro/join
>

Best regards,

Rolf

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




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