Some sholars say that even in the indicative the Greek verb does not indicate time (except maybe in the future tense) but aspect only.
I have not read any of the books that deal with this myself yet but I would like to know if there is a explanation why the vast majority of the imperfect and aorist indicatives are translated into English past time.
If in all these cases the context indicates (with deictic markers I think is the terminology) that these verbs are past time as well as imperfective and perfective aspect respectively would this not suggest that the verbs themselves have something to do with this?
I am not sure I follow! I mean yes, the present tense can be used for a past narrative too (as in English) but doesn’t i.e. έλυσα indicated time too? Or έλυον? I can’t see why anyone would say that don’t indicate time, unless of course the same is to be said for “untied”.
I’d say δε that in the case of ελελ?κειν there’s really not question we are talking about the past. No context is needed I think.
The following is bacially a bunch of rambling thoughts.
Do you know if these scholars base this on the historic present, which Irene brings up, and the gnomic aorist, where the times “don’t match up?” This is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head to indicate that the present and aorist aren’t present and past. I was wondering, though, how dos the sequence of moods work with these uses. Do historic presents use the optative in subordinate clauses? (I looked but couldn’t find out.)
I would also ask, then what’s the difference between the imperfect and the present indicative if it’s not one of time, since they share the same aspect? You need something more than aspect to distinguish these, don’t you? Maybe you could call it vividness (to incorporate the historic present), but I don’t see why time doesn’t work.
Also, isn’t the augment specifically a marker of past time? Then all verb forms that have it would be marked as past I would think.
I’d also say, though, that if the prototypical aorist is used as a past tense, then its meaning contains the idea of past, since, in my opinion, it is use that determines meaning.
as to m.i’s question: the historical present is regarded as a secondary tense (smyth 1858) and thus takes the optative in subordinate clauses.
as to bert’s question: i doubt that any scholars would say that the “tense” of a greek verb (i.e. present, imperfect, aorist, perfect) does not signify any time at all. lately, people have been fascinated with the idea that aspect is much more important than previously thought, but that doesn’t mean that “elusa” can mean either past, present, or future time. the aorist is, generally, a past tense. but the exceptions (gnomic aorists, empiric aorists, certain ingressive aorists that you encounter in tragedy) are interesting because they point to a schematic wherein aspect predominates over time. that schematic has been proposed for proto-indo-european, so instead of having three past tenses (like we have in greek and sanskrit), you had a “perfective” and an “imperfective” form of the verb, with time specified separately (for example, with the augment, or with the personal endings).
Do you know if these scholars base this on the historic present, which Irene brings up, and the gnomic aorist, where the times "don’t match up?
These are part of the argument.
I would also ask, then what’s the difference between the imperfect and the present indicative if it’s not one of time, since they share the same aspect?
And that is part of the argument that the verb does indicate time.
Also, isn’t the augment specifically a marker of past time? Then all verb forms that have it would be marked as past I would think.
Those sholars say that (esp. in Homer which is poetry) the augment can be left of for past tense verbs and at other times is used when the verb does not indicate past time.
Another example they give is the pluperfect which in Helenistic Greek often is without augment.
as to bert’s question: i doubt that any scholars would say that the “tense” of a greek verb (i.e. present, imperfect, aorist, perfect) does not signify any time at all
Stanley Porter in his “verbal Aspect” does say this.
(I have not read it myself but that is what the reviews say.)
Also Dr. Rodney Decker (who dealt with Porter’s book in his doctoral thesis) says that Greek along with a number of other languages are without any temporal reference in the verbal system.
decker and porter are both writing about new testament greek: i can’t really evaluate their claims, seeing as i don’t read koine. i would argue, however, that the tense-system of classical greek encodes both time and aspect. of course, there are “contextual clues” like adverbs (and even subjects, e.g. “hoi palai”) that indicate time, but these serve to reinforce the information given by the verb. for example: in “kateben khthes es peiraia,” the aorist and the adverb tell us exactly the same thing, i.e. the action was a single occurrence in the past. this is both time and aspect, and it is the usual meaning of the aorist.
your scholars say (allegedly) that when homer uses an augmentless aorist or imperfect, he does not want to indicate past time. quite the opposite, i think. i think that it is a unique, and kind of bizarre, quality of the indo-european verb that time is encoded in the personal endings (e.g. -etai versus -eto) and in the augment (and, to a certain extent, in the verbal stem). this gives the poet a lot of leeway: personal endings are obligatory, but the augment would not become obligatory until centuries later. whether the augment is present or not, aorists and imperfects signified past action.
aso,
Thank you. That does make things interesting though since it suggests that speakers thought of the historic present as a past tense.
Bert,
Isn’t it a little over-ambitious to try and give a single understanding of the verbal system of Greek from the Greek of Homer to Koine Greek, a period of a thousand years or more? I know it’s natural to compress the past (if that’s the right term) but a thousand years is a long time for a language to change. I don’t know.
But if you do read up on this, I’d be really happy if you could give us some of the details. I’m especially interested in what are the categories these scholars would base the verb system on, since aspect alone doesn’t seem to be enough.
And another rambling thought, what about the Greek grammar tradition, which if I remember correctly, organized the tenses based on time and completely missed aspect. This would suggest to me that time loomed large in the consciousness of the Greek speakers and that should mean soemthing.
Hi Bert,
As I remarked in the aspect tutorial that Will and I wrote a few years ago, “The technical literature concerning aspect is vast and difficult.” Having lately revisited this literature I can again attest to this painful truth. Permit me, then, without committing myself to a particular position, to make a few simple observations pertinent to this thread.
An answer to your question about the English translation of Greek imperfects and aorists is that the use of the English past tense is a kind of implication. This means, as you note, that context plays an important role in determining the relationship between the time of speaking and the time of the process described i.e., “tense.” Porter and Decker argue that most linguists have mistakenly imputed past time reference to the tense forms of the aorist and imperfect. Porter and Decker argue instead that these forms grammaticalize aspect, not “tense.”
With respect to the temporal force of the augment Porter follows Drewitt’s 1912 “Classical Quarterly” article entitled “The Augment in Homer.” Reasoning from these data, Drewitt concludes that the augment is “purely scansional:”
- The “present-aorist” as used in similes and gnomes is typically augmented.
- Iterative aorists, chiefly used in narrative to refer to past events, typically do NOT take the augment.
- In narrative, with its usual load of past-time references, both imperfect and aorist usually don’t take the augment.
- In speeches aorists that refer to present time, e.g., with νῦν, nearly always take the augment.
- In speeches aorists that refer to past time (preterite) can appear without the augment.
Drewitt concludes: “These points suggest one thing clearly enough. It is not the augment that creates or emphasizes the past meaning in any tense. The iterative, a purely narrative tense, does not admit the augment. The present-aorist, a typically non-narrative tense, can hardly exist without it.”
If we can no longer regard the augment as a certain marker of past time, then we can no longer regard the augmented imperfects and aorists of the classical period as necessarily past-referring; at least not on the basis of the augment.
If tense forms indicate not time, but aspect, then it is unremarkable that the present tense forms of the “historical present” can be used about past time. The same can be said of the omnitemporal and timeless references of the “gnomic aorist.”
Cordially,
Paul
I am being a little dense I know but I think I haven’t grasped the whole logic process completely.
First of all are we talking about Homeric Greek or ancient Greek in general?
Seconly, what I got is the following: “Augment alone is what shows us that a verb form is about the past”. “Augment alone is proved not to be a sure indicative of the tense/past time”. Therefore “verb forms in Ancient Greek only show aspect”.
I am sure I’ve missed something there because what I’ve got so far is faulty logic (as I see it)
Well Irene, it is complex and that is why I asked my question.
I am hardly the one to explain what arguments they use for verb tense without time. The following I paraphrased out of Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics by Daniel Wallace.
- The occurance of the historical present, futuristic present, proleptic aorist, gnomic aorist.
It is said that all these would be hard to explain if the verb form indicates time as well as aspect. - The fact that older greek (Esp. Homer) sometimes uses augments for non-past-tense aorists and at other times it will lack the augment even though the verb is clearly past tense. ( Aso’s comment is quite to the point)
i think that it is a unique, and kind of bizarre, quality of the indo-european verb that time is encoded in the personal endings
- In narative the imperfect has a different function than the aorist.
Ie: The one is used to describe the events while the other is used to move the narative along. I don’t follow this last argument because both are aumented and both use secondary endings. - The pluperfect does not always have teh augment so augment is not a time marker.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and following a similar thread on the B-Greek list, and I’m starting to think that this really isn’t about (ancient) Greek at all but about linguistics in general, since if the arguments against tense as a verbal feature in Greek are valid, then does there exist any language that has tense as a verbal feature? These arguments seem to apply to (the admittably very few) languages I’m somewhat familiar with, so I’m wondering if in these works mention an example of a verb system that encodes tense or if anybody can suggest one.