[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Randall Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Fri Sep 8 16:29:01 EDT 2006


Cyndy EGRAPSE
 >Hmmm, yes, with a few deft strokes, you associated the position  
with a lexical fallacy. >

  glad you appreciate that

 > It doesn't follow that aspect means "a unique always true single  
meaning". That's a very poor representation of the theory. >

see last point.

 > The question is, what does an aorist signal to a reader processing  
the text in a linear manner.>

I'm glad you mention this linear processing. I don't trust language  
exegesis that is too complicated for a language user to process.

 > And if we answer "'Past' >

I assume you mean aorist indicative? Yea, I like past. good place to  
start so you don't have to move too far or too fast.

 >except when when it means
'always',>

I wouldn't say that it means/signals 'always' but a past can be used  
in such contexts.

 > 'present'>

Nor does the aorist indicative signal 'real present', what is taking  
place.

 >or 'future'" >

and I don't think that aorist refers to the future either. As a  
literary convention I can write a story about 2050 and use the past  
tense. but such past tenses do not neutralize the time component.    
the celebrated case of Jude 14 is a quotation anyway. Just another  
past tense. (sort of a cavalier approach, right? I don't even care  
how some might want to translate it into another language.)

 >then it I question it's explanatory power, and I look elsewhere for  
the non-cancellable semantic value--which can be quite complex.>

there, you see, I was simply clarifying and translating "non- 
cancellable semantic value"
as "unique, always true single meaning".
And you admit that that is a lexical fallacy?!  (You left yourself  
open for that.)
[and I would claim it to be a fallacy, setting up an either-or as a  
presupposition, even if the presupposition is admirable.]
More seriously, I do not assume 'non-cancellable semantic value' for  
morphosyntactic categories in a language. I map contexts to forms and  
slowly distill, mimic and use. the mapping includes comparison/ 
opposition with other possible options/morphosyntactic categories.

Outside of language use I play with metalanguage, but that is a  
different skill. My metalanguage even allows 'masking of components',  
because that is what I find happening in languages. Most languages  
and categories have use-idioms and usages that bleed, that bend the  
parameters. Common English would call it exceptions that prove the  
rule, even if commonplace.
In Arabic there is a jussive verb form yaf`ul 'let him do it'.  
However, with a particular negative it is a past tense lam yaf`ul 'he  
did not do it'. I accept that. I have heard non-linguist Arabs say  
they have no explanation. They still use the forms correctly, even  
when their explanations are impossible/adhoc. Some associate yaf`ul  
with an imperfective (I wouldn't know about that), but lam yaf`ul  
functions very perfectively. The etymological "semantic value" is  
irrelevant because development and history have created a complexity.  
One usage is jussive/optative, the other is indicative and negative.  
Maybe someday I will learn why and how those developed, but in the  
meantime I can go on using it just like an english speaker can say  
"went" and "go" without trying to answer how those became one word.  
C'est la langue.
ERRWSO
Randall Buth






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