[tied] Re: PIE Punctual and Durative

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 46831
Date: 2006-12-29

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
> > The aorist is not "the past".

> A sentence with a verb in the aorist refers to an event in the past.

> > It's an aspect rather than a tense.

> No, perfective is an aspect rather than a tense. There is no aorist
> preterite, aorist present nor aorist future. The aorist is a punctual
> past.

I know Classical Greek is not PIE, but consider the parallelism there:

present indicative <-> (nothing)
imperfect <-> aorist indicative
present subjunctive <-> aorist subjunctive
present(?) optative <-> aorist optative
present imperative <-> aorist imperative

(This analogy extends into the perfect, though the imperative is
restricted to the verbs whose sense allows it.)

However, prohibitions are made in the aorist subjunctive rather than
the aorist imperative but also straight forwardly in the imperative
rather than the subjunctive.

Let me quote from a simple Greek grammar (William Smith's): 'In the
Imperative, Subjunctive, Optative, and Infinitive the Aorist (except
in certain constructions which will be noticed later) loses, with the
augment, the idea of past time, and denotes simply the occurrence of
an action. In these moods it is to be rendered by the English
Present.' There is a footnote to this saying, 'The Greek present is
properly a continuous present, as _grápHo:, I am writing_, or it is
use of an often repeated acted, as _grápho:, I am in the habit of
writing_. Consequently when the English present denotes the mere
occurrence of _an isolated single act_, it is better rendered in the
above moods by the _aorist_ than by the present.'

There seems to be a great deal of merit in treating the Greek finite
forms as being the present, past, subjunctive, optative or imperative
of the 'continuous', aorist, future and perfect 'aspects'.

Richard.