Aspect and Tense in Ancient Greek Introduction: in the Present Paper I Will Try to Give a Brief Overview of a Very Interesting R

Home , Aorist, Aorist (Ancient Greek), Imperfect, Imperfective aspect, Optative (Ancient Greek)

!"#$%&%&!'(!ʹ!')*+,-!#&.!/+&)+!%&!'&,%+&-!01++23!'41%)-!ʹ!56*+17+,-!.%)-%&,-%4&! Aspect and Tense in Ancient Greek

Introduction: In the present paper I will try to give a brief overview of a very interesting recent work concerning formal semantics approaches to ancient languages, namely Ancient Greek ± a dissertation ³$VSHFWLQ$QFLHQW Greek $VHPDQWLFDQDO\VLVRIWKHDRULVWDQGLPSHUIHFWLYH´E\ Corien Bary (2009) . The aim of the thesis is to show that, despite the fact that there are no native speakers, Ancient Greek provides a large variety of problems that deserves to be treated in a PRGHUQVHPDQWLFVZD\DQGPRUHRYHUJLYHVDJRRGRSSRUWXQLW\RI³EHWD-WHVW´for every theory of aspect which claims to be consistent.

Now let me make explicit the contents of my overview. First of all, I will give the aspectual system of Ancient Greek and its relation with tense system. Then I will focus on different interpretations of Aorist and Imperfect. Furthermore, I will describe various approaches to the theory of aspect developed in the formal semantics framework and show how the author applies them to Ancient Greek data. And at the end of the work I will make a conclusion with the basic ideas and innovations of the present dissertation.

Ancient G reek Aspect System

Ancient Greek has three aspects: aoristic, imperfective, and perfect aspect. the opposition between aoristic and imperfective aspect is realised throughout the verbal paradigm. Table 1.1 gives an overview of the imperfective and aoristic forms of the verb OXHLQµWRORRVHQ¶ - eis a past tense marker; -58 -sa is a marker for aoristic aspect.

Finite indicative (past tense) İȜȣȠȞc(eluon), İȜȣıĮc(elusa) Subjunctive: ȜȣȦ (OXĀR), ȜȣıȦ (OXVĀR). Optative: ȜȣȠȚȝȚ (luoimi), ȜȣıĮȚȝȚ (lusaimi). Imperative: Ȝȣİ (lue), ȜȣıȠȞ (luson). Nonfinite participle: ȜȣȦȞ (OXĀRQ), ȜȣıĮȢ (lusas). Infinitive: ȜȣİȚȞ luein, ȜȣıĮȚ (lusai). 8! ! !"#$%&%&!'(!ʹ!')*+,-!#&.!/+&)+!%&!'&,%+&-!01++23!'41%)-!ʹ!56*+17+,-!.%)-%&,-%4&! Table 1.1: The aoristic±imperfective distinction for the verb ȜȣİȚȞ (luein) µWR ORRVHQ¶. Most grammars use the word tense for what should be called a tense-aspect pair, that is, a combination of tense, a member of the set ^past, present, future`, and aspect, a member of the set ^aorist, imperfect, perfect`. In Ancient Greek it is more evident than in modern European languages, because there are different morphemes for marking tense and aspect which can be seen throughout the verb paradigm. Table 1.2 demonstrates all Ancient Greek tense-aspect pairs which are discussed in this dissertation: Present Past IPSHUIHFWLYHµSUHVHQW¶µLPSHUIHFW¶ Aoristic - µDRULVW¶ So, the universal scheme of the sentence will be smth like that (of course tense and aspect operators must be formally interpretated, but we will talk about it later): TENSE (GRAM. ASPECT (predicate-argument structure)). The distinction between aoristic and imperfective aspect is a distinction in grammatical aspect. Thus, we will talk a little bit about the notion of aspect.

The notion of aspect In this thesis Corien Bary uses the word aspect in a rather broad sense. It includes both grammatical aspect and aspectual classes or Aktionsart. Grammatical aspect FDQEHFDOOHG³LQWHUQDOWLPHRIWKHSUHGLFDWH´+RZHYHU the verb itself, without grammatical aspect, also has certain properties that are relevant aspectually. On the basis of these properties, verbs (predicate-argument structures, that is, the verb with its arguments) are divided in aspectual classes or Aktionsarten. Some predicates introduce inherent boundaries for eventualities, for example, John eat an apple and John run two miles. They belong to the class of bounded or telic predicates. Others do not introduce inherent boundaries, for example, John run and John be blond, and are called unbounded or atelic. 9! ! !"#$%&%&!'(!ʹ!')*+,-!#&.!/+&)+!%&!'&,%+&-!01++23!'41%)-!ʹ!56*+17+,-!.%)-%&,-%4&! Moreover, a subclass of the unbounded predicates is set apart as the stative predicates. Now, after being acquainted with the crucial for this work notion of aspect, we will pass on different interpretations of aorist and imperfect in Ancient Greek. Interpretations of aorist and imperfect in Ancient G reek Imperfective aspect, obviously, has a non-completed action interpretation (which seems to be restricted to atelic predicates class), but also has a habitual interpretation (which does not possess the stated restriction). Non-finished action: ȀȣȡȠȢįCİ ȠȣʌȦ µȘțİȞ ¶ĮȜȜ¶İĲȚ Kuros de RXSĀR KĀHNHQ DOO¶ eti Cyrus.nom prt not.yet be.present.pst.ipfv.3sg but still ʌȡȠıȘȜĮȣȞİ SURVĀHODXQH march.to.pst.IPFV.3sg ³&\UXVZDVQRW\HWSUHVHQWEXWKHZDVVWLOOPDUFKLQJRQ´ X. An. 1.5.12 Habitual interpretation: ǻȦȡĮ µȠȚ ĮȞĮ ʌĮȞ İĲȠȢİįȚįȠȣ dĀora hoi ana pan etos edidou, he.dat he.dat PREP every.acc year.acc give.pst.IPFV.3sg țĮȚ ĲȘȞ ǺĮȕȣȜȦȞĮ ȠµȚ kai tĀen BabylĀona Hoi and the.acc Babylon.acc he.dat İįȦțİ HGĀRNH give.pst.AOR.3sg ³(YHU\\HDUKHJDYHKLPSUHVHQWVDQGKHJDYHKLP%DE\ORQ´ Hdt. 3.160.2

:! ! !"#$%&%&!'(!ʹ!')*+,-!#&.!/+&)+!%&!'&,%+&-!01++23!'41%)-!ʹ!56*+17+,-!.%)-%&,-%4&! Besides these interpretations there are conative and likelyhood interpretations (which is stongly related to the imperfective paradox): ǼʌİșȣȝȘıİ ĲȘȢȤȜĮȞȚįȠȢțĮȚĮȣĲȘȞʌȡȠıİȜșȦȞ epethumĀese tĀes chlanidos kai autĀen proselthĀon long.for.pst.aor.3sg the.gen garment.gen and that.acc go.to.aor.ptcp.nom ȦȞİİĲȠµȠ įİȈȣȜȠıȦȞȜİȖİȚ Āoneeto. ho de 6XORVĀRQ . . . legei: buy.pst.IPFV.3sg the.nom prt Syloson.nom . . . say.prs.ipfv.3sg İȖȦ ĲĮȣĲȘȞ ʌȦȜİȦ ȝİȞȠȣįİȞȠȢ ȤȡȘȝĮĲȠı HJĀR WDXWĀHQ SĀROHĀR men oudenos FKUĀHPDWRV I.nom that.acc sell.prs.ipfv.1sg prt no.gen money.gen įȚįȦȝȚ įİ ĮȜȜȦı GLGĀRPL de DOOĀRV give.prs.ipfv.1sg prt for.nothing ³+H set his heart upon the garment, came forward and wanted to buy LW%XW6\ORVRQVDLGµ,GRQ¶WVHOOWKDWRQHIRUDQ\PRQH\EXW,JLYH LWIRUIUHH¶´+GW-3 Aorist has complexive, ingressive, generic and tragic interpretations.

Formal semantics approaches So now we are willing to know- KRZDOOWKHVH³DGGLWLRQDO´LQWHUSUHWDWLRQV come about? Here the formal semantics comes into play: the basis of the analysis in the present thesis is modified DRT (Discourse Representation Theory), typed- lambda theory originally developed by Kamp et al. In the Appendix you could find syntax, semantics and transformation rules of this semantics calculus. Discourse Representation Theory focuses on the interpretation of discourse rather than sentences in isolation. Its basic idea is that natural language utterances are interpreted in a continually evolving discourse. The logical forms of DRT are called Discourse Representation Structures (DRSs). They consist of a set of discourse markers and a set of conditions. ;! ! !"#$%&%&!'(!ʹ!')*+,-!#&.!/+&)+!%&!'&,%+&-!01++23!'41%)-!ʹ!56*+17+,-!.%)-%&,-%4&! Discourse markers represent objects that are introduced as the discourse proceeds. They function in a way similar to variables in predicate logic, and I will use these terms interchangeably. Conditions come in various kinds. They encode descriptive information that is assigned to discourse markers. Formally, a DRS K is an ordered pair U(K ),Con(K)!U(K), where U(K), the universe of K, is a set of discourse markers and Con(K) is a set of conditions. However, this analysis does not provide any solution to the aorist and imperfect interpretations. And De Swart approach seems to have solved the problem by introducing the notion of FRHUFLRQDQGVRFDOOHG³DVSHFWXDOO\VHQVLWLYHWHQVHRSHUDWRUV´ZKLFK serve to the operation of coercion (Coercion refers to the phenomenon that if there is a mismatch between the input requirements of an operator and the properties of its argument, the argument is reinterpreted in such a way that it satisfies the requirements). However, this theory is still not perfect: the main objection consists in the fact that Ancient Greek has a distinct morpheme for aspect forms a serious drawback for tKHFRHUFLRQDSSURDFKGLVFXVVHGRIGH6ZDUW¶VDQDO\VLVLW entails that aoristic and imperfective morphology are semantically vacuous. Postulating such a zero morpheme is not a very good decision.

Thus, the author of the dissertation proposing new coercion operators: MAX (imality) and INGR (essive) and reformulating the tense operators. Thus, we can treat our Greek examples in a new way.

De Swart¶V vs. Corien¶VWUHDWLQJRILPSHUIHFW-aorist distinction

The basic hypothesis of these two approaches consists of following statements:

x The main distinction between aoristic and imperfective aspects is aspectual classes dichotomy, that is, telic \ atelic predicates.

In French, the imparfait and passHVLPSOHFDQEHanalyzed as past tense operators since they only occur in the past tense. So De Swart, working with the French data, naturally defines aorist and imperfect as aspect-sensitive tense operators. However, in Ancient Greek the aorist-imperfective distinction is not restricted to the past tense, so this presupposition will not work at all. This also OHDGVXVWRSUREOHPVZLWK'H6ZDUW¶VQRWLRQRIFRHUFion, since time cannot trigger coercion anymore. So the author has to redefine that notion in order not to get rid of it, since it is the main advantage introduced to the semantic analysis of aorist and imperfect by De Swart. To deal with the coercion better, Comrie introduces Egg¶s Duration Principle. His Duration Principle states that information on the duration of an eventuality that is introduced by various linguistic expressions must be consistent. This principle has a twofold function in reinterpretation phenomena: (i) it guides the choice for a specific reinterpretation operator from the set of feasible reinterpretations in the case of coercion triggered by other sources, and (ii) it triggers its own reinterpretations. So this principle takes up the central place in Corien¶s analysis. Compared with De Swart¶s approach, Corien has also specified the default binding rules for the anaphoric topic time. These rules together with the semantics of aspect explain the common temporal patterns found in Ancient Greek discourse. Furthermore, she has argued that the anaphoric nature of the topic time ensures the flexibility needed to allow for deviations from the common patterns under the influence of particles, world knowledge etc. Finally, Comrie shows that the autonomous use of the aorist is best explained in terms of the accommodation of a long topic time up to the moment of utterance. Unfortunately, here we will have to finish our overview, being unable to describe all the suttleties, crucial points and interesting topics of this dissertation =! !