Talk:Aorist (Ancient Greek)

Xenophon

It is a measure of how much work this article needs that it has no present place for this paragraph:

• An example of how the aorist tense contrasts with the imperfect in describing the past occurs in Xenophon's Anabasis, when the Persian aristocrat Orontas is executed: "and those who had been previously in the habit of bowing (προσεκύνουν prosekúnoun, imperfect) to him, bowed (προσεκύνησαν prosekúnēsan, aorist) to him even then." Here the imperfect refers to a past habitual or repeated act, and the aorist to a single one.

When it is rewritten completely, without debatable claims, this should go under narrative aorist - although other examples will be more useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

References

Unattainable wish

We need an example of unattainable wish without eithe or ei gar. — Eru·tuon 22:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

No, we need a statement less categorical than the text - but I will see, when Rijksbaron next surfaces, if he has an example also. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:59, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

top tags

The two confidence-eroding tags at the top of the article unhelpfully invite readers to visit the talk page for a discussion of what they mean. Nor is the promise of "dubious — discuss" fulfilled here in regard to "aorist aspect." No drive-by tagging, please. No importing arguments from other pages. This article is about the Greek aorist as it is treated in the study of ancient Greek, all dialects. I'm deleting these tags, and they should not be restored unless they really are discussed here, using sources that pertain to ancient Greek. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

'global' and 'bounded'

These terms are bothersome in the first sentence for the following reasons:

• They have meanings in common usage that are not intended here, where they have a technical meaning. Therefore, they need to link to the appropriate article or section that can explain them.
• They are opaque and unhelpful unless you already know what they mean, in which case you're unlikely to be looking at this article.
• Finally, and perhaps worst: they are not syntactically parallel to simply and in summary and as a point, which are adverbial. This is surely a crime in an article that sets out to explain an element of grammar to someone desperate enough to look it up on Wikipedia. If the writers of the article don't know how to put together a sentence, it doesn't inspire much confidence in the reader. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I figured that if I used words not specific to the source, s.o. would object that it's OR. "Unitary" might work. (Cf. the coverage at PFV.) The point is that sources such as Napoli deny that the aorist presents a situation 'as a point', since there are durative aorists; this is a common inaccurate description of PFVs, but not one that in the end is very helpful to the reader. (There might also be a problem w 'simply', which I at least might mistake for aspectually neutral, when the aorist isn't that either.) "Bounded" has the advantage that it covers the contextual uses mentioned later, as incipient, terminative, etc. I think the solution for poor wording or grammar is to improve the wording or grammar, not to remove the point altogether. — kwami (talk) 22:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

What the lack of parallel syntax shows is that the concepts don't belong in the series of explanatory phrases as the sentence is structured here. I did not delete the words, but if they are useful concepts they are surely explored somewhere on WP in a section to which they can be linked. If not, I suggest creating Global (linguistics) and Bounding (linguistics), as a cursory search failed to uncover a potential link. I agree that "simply" is uninformative, and forgot to mention it. I'm mainly here to deal with presentation and accessibility. I'm not the "dancing angels on heads of pins" type of gal, but I don't have patience for sentences that are badly put together. It seems to me that if theoretical linguistics forces us to write incomprehensible sentences, it lacks applicability for the language-learner trying to figure out how to read the aorist in the Iliad or the New Testament. This article was created to illuminate "Greek grammar," in its ordinary meaning, in an applied way. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I just created the article Boundedness (linguistics) to explain the term. (The credit for whatever's good in the article belongs to Taivo, who explained it to me.) I'm not sure if this makes the term helpful, but at least someone can find out what it means. — Eru·tuon 23:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Aorist as a point

In response to Kwami's recent edit, the description of the aorist as a point is not meant to imply that it describes only semelfactive actions, but rather that an action, whatever the duration, is understood as a point. Thus the example under complexive aorist, of an event taking 30 years, is portrayed as a point, even though its duration is very long. So, I don't think the language of a point is inaccurate; perhaps it should have been clarified, though. — Eru·tuon 22:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The point is the essence of the aorist and the perfective aspect in general. The current wording is far harder for people to grasp if they are new to the concept. It is people who are new to the concept that are the most likely readers of this page. Dejvid (talk) 10:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

That claim, like most claims about "essence", is open to serious dispute. Rijksbaron, the most recent and most thorough writer on the Greek verb expressly denies the common claim, that Greek cannot express relative time - partly on the ground that the aorist does in fact do so, in ordinary narrative, and partly on the ground that the meanings of all the Greek stems are more complex than that would make out, being largely contextual. In any case, the whole argument is metaphysical. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Granted the aorist does not always express aspect: doesn't the metaphor of a point still summarize the aspectual meanings of the aorist? — Eru·tuon 16:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Then we should not say that it does always express aspect. And the metaphor of a point can be actively misleading when considering the temporal aorist, for example - not everybody reading this article will think of Euclid's definition. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't like the terminology "point" either. The aorist isn't really a point, but a bounded action--no matter how long it takes it's viewed as a single event. I haven't had my morning caffeine, so my brain isn't producing the proper term for an action viewed as a singularity, but "point" isn't working for me. --Taivo (talk) 16:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a natural metaphor for Hellenists ("a point is that which has no part"); but it is not likely to be helpful for our readers, any more than the spatial metaphors of Campbell, below. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

If you throw a phrase like "bounded action" at someone who is new to the field you risk panicking them. Could not aspect be introduced as looking at an action as if it was a point and then you can add that it might be more strictly described as a "bounded action". If someone already has the easy to grasp picture of a point, has then had it explained to them the importance of the qualification "as if" (in that we are often talking about an event that is far from instantaneous), then to suggest the term "bounded action" is not likely to be so alarming.Dejvid (talk) 17:30, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

That may be worthwhile. On the other hand, I'd be irritated if the lede told me it was a "point", and then the text said it wasn't a point. Perhaps we can come up with another term, like "unitary"? Taivo, any suggestions? — kwami (talk) 18:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

"Unitary" or "singularity" are all that come to mind right now and are preferable to "bounded" for the unfamiliar reader. The phrase "perceived as a single event without divisions" is the best, but a good single word besides "unitary" or "singularity" isn't coming to mind. I think "unitary" might be more accessible, because "singularity" is becoming more attached to talking about black holes than talking about grammar. Perhaps, just "unit"? --Taivo (talk) 18:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Why say "perceived" when "seen as" conveys the same meaning? Singularity is the worst of both worlds. It is very high on the "oh my god this is too technical" scale. It was also conveys a very powerful image of a star reduced to a point. Describing perfective aspect as looking at an event as if it were a point is just one way of looking at things. If later the article says that considering perfective aspect as a point is only valid if we bear in mind that it is how the speaker looks chooses to look at the event. When we look at a star we see a point even though we know that star is huge.Dejvid (talk) 19:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Smyth and Gildersleeve and Robertson use words like "undivided", "single", "simple"; the last two may be misunderstood without more explanation. "Unit" may well convey nothing to the unhappy reader, or lead her to military history. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

We don't use "seen" because language is not visual. "Perceived" or "understood" are the correct terms to use. --Taivo (talk) 19:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

"Perceived" isn't visual? If it isn't a visual metaphor it isn't anything. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not strictly visual--it's more cognitive. It is often used as a synonym of "understand"--one a Latinate form, the other a Germanic form. But an appropriate Anglo-Saxon term is always better than ten Greco-Latin ones, so "understand" beats "see" and "perceive". --Taivo (talk) 20:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

And do not people often say "I see" when they mean "I understand"? Both understand and see are old english but see uses a real sense as a metaphor and so creates in the reader a concrete image while understand is a little abstract. Germanic forms do tend to be more everyday words but it is the fact they are everyday that gives them the edge when we are writing for newbies as here. Germanic is not an automatic guarantee of accessibility though it often helps.Dejvid (talk) 23:03, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

And this seems (to use another visual metaphor) incompatible with the etymology and force of eidon, since we are discussing Greek; see LSJ definition II. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Aspectual meaning

Pmanderson, please explain your disagreement with the POV of the Aspectual meaning section, which you deleted (twice) [ thrice ], and what POV you would have it express. The text of the section is important to the article, so its deletion needs explanation. — Eru·tuon 15:06, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Insofar as it is true, it is redundant - and filled with unnecessary and obscure language. But it is not even true. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

What purpose does this serve?

In all moods, the aorist often expresses aspect. In the simplest terms, the aorist portrays a situation as simple and unitary. It may be used for the beginning of the action (ingressive aorist), the end (resultative aorist), or the entire action in summary (complexive aorist). These contextual variations on the perfective aspect appear in all moods, and do not depend on the verb; a given verb may have either an ingressive or resultative reading, for example:

• ἔβαλον ébalon "I let fly (an arrow)" (ingressive) or "I hit (with an arrow)" (resultative)

The meat here is the third sentence, which is redundant with the sections immediately below.

There would be use for an explanation of aspect, but there isn't one, except "in the simplest terms". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

The introductory paragraph uses the term "point" to describe the aorist. This text explaining specifically what that means. Without an explanation, I'm not sure how the readers would interpret it.

And I just wanted to include Smyth's explanation because it's so simple and elegant. There are two points (according to the term boundedness, bounds), the beginning and end of an action, and the aorist expresses them in three combinations.

The sections you added are important because they explain actual uses of the aorist in narrative, but those uses only intersect with the aspectual uses (except for the past-in-the-past, perhaps), and aren't parallel categories. — Eru·tuon 18:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

No, they are important because they are about something; that is, contain some information, some falsifiable assertion. Does this add anything to them? Not really.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

By your argument, we shouldn't have a lede, because it's redundant with the text. We give a summary to orientate the reader, or for those who are merely skimming the article, then we flesh it out. That's how we write articles. — kwami (talk) 19:30, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a lead is supposed to be a summary. This isn't - and it is a terrible summary: it keeps the hard words and leaves out the explanation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

The lead is a summary of all the sections under it; likewise, the section Aspectual meaning was a summary of the three subsections (ingressive, resultative, complexive) under it. Why should a section not have a summary of its subsections? — Eru·tuon 20:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's good reason to keep it. I've added that point to the lede and demoted 'boundedness' to a footnote, so at least we have some of the context while we debate this. — kwami (talk) 18:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Sep, your description of the perfective aspect is incomplete. As I understand it, the perfective expresses a bounded action or state: i.e., one with a beginning or an end, or both. When you say that the aorist expresses an undivided whole, you are only including the "both". — Eru·tuon 23:00, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Then drop the mention of it, unless you can find a reliable source saying exactly that for the Greek aorist in particular. This imitation of Procrustes, which forces the Greek tenses into the boxes provided by a crude picture of English and Russian should be resisted as unscientific scholasticism. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

In the name of Parmenides, it is possible to be both undivided and unbounded.... These are not logically related terms. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

References

Narrative

This might be one of the sources? This is the kind of section that I think distinguishes Aorist (Ancient Greek) as a justifiable content fork rather than a POV fork: that is, the aorist within a philological approach, rather than within the discourse of theoretical linguistics. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a good link, Cynwolfe. It's exactly what Kwami and I have called, and continue to call, linguistics. It's exactly the kind of work that I mentioned at Talk:Aorist where the science of linguistics intersects with the study of an individual language. --Taivo (talk) 15:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Except that in philology, with which this article is concerned, it's a matter of methodology rather than theory. It's applied, not theoretized. I still haven't had a chance to round up my examples to show what my concerns would be in terms of this article's content. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Faulty writing, obscure sense

In the indicative mood, the aorist combines aspect and tense, with past being the predominate tense inferred. In the other moods, the aorist expresses aspect, except in indirect discourse. Time is determined by the function of the mood.

The second sentence here is false - unless you define indirect discourse to include dependent clauses; this may be no crazier than some other edits on this subject, but is not explained and would not be helpful to the reader. The first sentence is clumsy; I have no idea what the third is supposed to mean and doubt our readers will. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The point is explained in the section Dependent clauses, but probably it's not clear enough. An aorist optative in a past general conditional clause refers to past time because it's optative, not because it's aorist. A present optative in the same construction would also refer to past time, with a difference of aspect.

Likewise, an present or aorist optative expressing potentiality refers to the future (usually) because that's what the potential optative does. An present or aorist subjunctive in a conditional clause refers to present or future time because that's what the subjunctive does.

So, the point is on which category determines time: the mood or the tense. In some cases it's the mood, in others it's the tense. If the tense always determined time, then past general conditional clauses would use the aorist, imperfect, or pluperfect instead of the optative. — Eru·tuon 21:11, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

In the indicative mood, the aorist combines aspect and tense, with past being the predominate tense inferred. It usually refers to an action viewed as an undivided whole, also known as the perfective aspect.

The first sentence here is very badly written. Tense should not be used in the "general linguistic" sense without explanation; the English adjective is "predominant" - and even that is pretentious and misleading; the use of inferred for implied is abominable. It might be worth fixing, if it added any content to the text; if it does, I don't see it, and doubt most readers will.

There is no problem with the second sentence - except that Erutonon disagrees with it, above. Work out whether or not that bloodless abstraction, the perfective aspect, is bounded as well as undivided on that article; spare us the offtopic discussion. This article deals with an observable, the ancient Greek aorist.

The first sentence of the article:

In the philology of Ancient Greek, including Koine, the aorist is a class of verb forms with perfective aspect, that generally portray a situation "simply",[1] in "summary",[2] or as a "point" (whether the beginning, the end, or the situation in its entirety).

needed trimming. The problem with perfective aspect is not that it is redundant with the rest of the article, which it ought to be, but that it is redundant with the rest of the same sentence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:59, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The first sentence is accurate according to our reliable sources and, you are right, the root used in our sources is "implied", not "inferred" and it should be "predominant". This first sentence now says something quite close to what you have always pushed for--away from the "all aspect, all the time" position and towards a combination of aspect and tense in the indicative. You were right to make sure that tense was a component of our description of the aorist in the indicative, but now you seem to be pushing aspect out of the equation, which is wrong. Aspect with tense, yes; aspect only or tense only, no. --Taivo (talk) 14:23, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Please read what I actually said. It is Erutonon who objects to the content here: in the intro and elsewhere, this refers to the perfective aspect as bounded, but in the paragraph on the indicative this defines it as meaning only undivided.

My objections are to the prose, and to the (what I hope to be careless) implication that the aorist is always aspected. That it is normally aspected this article has always said. 14:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Then why are you edit warring over it? The aorist is always aspected, even in the indicative, but in the indicative it is also tense. The tense is secondary, but the aspect is primary. --Taivo (talk) 17:14, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a point of view: a dogmatic one, not supported by the sources or the evidence. But my complaint here is not so much that this foolishness has worked its way into the text as that the quoted extracts are incomprehensible - even to me, much less to our unhappy readers.

Permit me to join in Cynwolfe's skepticism that "general linguistics" has any relation to rhetoric - and God help any orator who talks so murkily. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:22, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Sep, I don't understand why you object to things in the lede being "redundant". A well written lede should be entirely redundant, as it's supposed to be a summary of the article.

For s.o. who doesn't like jargon, I'm also puzzled by your addition of "transformativity". This is an idiosyncratic account of perfectivity that I've only ever seen with this one author; it's also not in opposition to PFVity. The only debate I've seen is whether tense is inherent to the aorist: that is, whether it's PFV or PFV past, and perhaps whether that past is absolute or relative. Since Johanson (who you miscited as Dahl) is only arguing about the nature of perfectivity, he should be cited in the perfective aspect article if anywhere. — kwami (talk) 17:53, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

My objection to the sentence here quoted is that it is redundant with itself (with itself, do you understand that? ;-). Since there is no need of emphasis, as in the previous sentence, this is bad writing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:10, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The description of the aorist as "undivided" is fine, and consistent with boundedness. It's just that I'd like the aorist's aspectual meaning described specifically, and separately from the syntax of the aorist indicative, because the three types of aspectual meaning (whole action, beginning, and end) can occur in any of the uses of the indicative and in the other moods. — Eru·tuon 18:21, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The aorist's aspectual meaning is parts of the function of the aorist; the way to discuss it is to list the functions of the aorist, which will contain it as (as it were) a dimension or aspect or quality of the whole. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

But the article structure presents the aspectual meanings as functions of the aorist indicative, not of the whole aorist. Having a separate Aspect section would make it clear that they apply (or often apply) to the whole aorist. — Eru·tuon 23:07, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

"transformativity"

For all the complaining that Sep does about linguistic jargon, he's repeatedly deleted tags asking for clarification of some true jargon: "Yet others hold that the transformativity found in the ingressive, resultative, and inceptive aorist is constitutive of the aorist in general". If we need clarification for "bounded", which is fairly intuitive, we certainly do for this. I haven't had the chance to read all of Johanson (who Sep cites as "Dahl"), but 'transformative' appears to be an idiosyncratic term that J uses for a component of the semantic load of PFV. (Thus perhaps no "others", plural.) How is this even relevant, when Sep keeps trying to delete refs that the aorist is PFV? Discussions of whether the aorist includes inherent tense are certainly notable, but one author debating whether the aorist/perfective is or is not "transformative" belongs, if anywhere, in the article on PFV aspect. I'll delete it, since it's not intelligible to the reader and AFAIK not notable in any case. — kwami (talk) 23:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't suit your POV, so you delete it; right. The applicability of this theoretical framework to any of the languages abused by Aorist - or to any languages at all except English and Russian, on which the terms are modeled - is debatable; insofar as it is dragged into this article, the existence of such debates should be noted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:44, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

In the philology of Ancient Greek, including Koine, the aorist is a class of verb etc

First off to start the lede with a word like "philology" is an excellent way of scaring of any reader who isn't already an expert on the aorist. I would prefer the original wording "In Greek grammar,". But do aorist verb forms really need academics to study it to convey a perfective meaning? Was the aorist any less aorist when Homer spoke even though no one was studying what he said but merely enjoying the story?Dejvid (talk) 23:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it was. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:49, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes what? And for that matter why?Dejvid (talk) 09:59, 26 September 2010 (UTC) But thanks for changing it to Greek grammar. That was my main concern.Dejvid (talk) 10:03, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it was better to use "grammar"; philology is a Germanizing classicist's jargon. And I agree that the aorist was equally aorist when Homer sang. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Rijksbaron and tense

Found an interesting quote in a review of Rijksbaron:

On questions of tense and aspect generally, Rijksbaron plays up tense and plays down aspect to a greater extent than most others would nowadays (p. 2, n. 1). On the one hand, it's convenient to speak in tense-based terms of anteriority and simultaneity when discussing the relationship between a participle and the main verb (p. 117); on the other hand, this causes problems for Rijksbaron when he looks at the gnomic aorist (p. 32). Such aorists are much easier to explain if the aorist indicative fundamentally marks perfective aspect rather than past tense. (The anteriority and simultaneity expressed by aorist and present participles respectively can still be easily explained in aspect-based accounts as epiphenomenal.) Significantly, the gnomic aorist which causes him such difficulty comes from Homer, whereas the vast majority of his examples come from Herodotus and Classical Attic (the index locorum contains only two citations from Homer). Based on the late development of the historical present (which, quite the opposite of the gnomic aorist, is easier to explain in a tense-based model like Rijksbaron's than in an aspect-based one), it seems likely, as I argued in a talk at the 2008 APA, that tense gradually became more important relative to aspect over the years between Homer and the classical period. Rijksbaron's focus on the fifth and fourth centuries would then explain his bias in favor of tense. (Coulter George, Bryn Mawn Classical Review)

— kwami (talk) 23:52, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

In short, he is describing (Herodotus and) literary Attic, which imitated Homer. Quite true; and this article does not yet describe the changes into Koine. But that is the standard way to describe ancient Greek; begin with the largest and most variegated corpus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:56, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Note on this subject added to Terminology; there's a book on the Homeric mixed aorist, which should be very useful - as should Robertson, and Smyth's Greek Dialects. But the differences - in this article - are minor. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

More bad writing

As a perfective, the aorist usually implies a past event in the indicative, but while it usually describes the past, it does not assert pastness, and can be used of present or future events

This sentence is repetitious (within itself, Kwami). It also implies as written that the perfective quality of the aorist causes it to deal with the past, which is a novel claim even in the wilderness of jargon that certain editors insist on infliciting on this innocent article. It will be of no help to the reader who does know what the "perfective aspect" is; and positively confusing to those who do not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The reader will know what the perfective is because they have read it in the immediately preceding sentence. You seem to imply that these sentences all stand in a vacuum. They do not and the implication that each sentence must stand alone is not good style. --Taivo (talk) 20:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Do we have a source on the other issue, whether the past tense use of the aorist is an implication of perfectivity? — Eru·tuon 22:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, several, including some of the refs we already have listed, and in the quote I gave in the last thread ("The anteriority and simultaneity expressed by aorist and present participles respectively can still be easily explained in aspect-based accounts as epiphenomenal"). — kwami (talk) 00:30, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Epiphenomenal? Save it for the metaphysical articles; this deals with a matter of observation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and the observation, cited in several sources, is that "past" is an implication of "perfective". --Taivo (talk) 19:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

As usual, Sep, I have no idea what your comment has to do with the question at hand. Yes, epiphenomenal. Common enough word. — kwami (talk) 19:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is obscurantism at work. ἐπιφαίνω is common enough in Greek, although it tends to become a (medical) technical term even there; its common senses, however, can be much more readily expressed by, say, "show up", "appear" and are not reflected in English. This article is about neither Kant nor Hegel, in which epiphenomenal might have a use - in translating their atrocious writing; here it fails to communicate anything - save that a writer is being careful not to expose his thought to the daylight of common language. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there a source that gives a good explanation that we can adapt for use in the article? — Eru·tuon 21:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

An actual explanation would be rather involved and IMO best suited for the perfective article. As for citable statements, there's the "implicature" quote we gave earlier, and surrounding discussion; Napoli also covers this, though not concisely in what I see. Comrie covers it in his chapter on aspect & tense. Bybee in The evolution of grammar (1994) covers the interrelationship more explicitly, as she's looking at aspect cross-linguistically and seeing how one form may evolve into another. On p 83 she says,

Dahl 1985 makes the important point that perfective grams [grammatical forms], if not restricted to past time reference, typically describe events that are in the past. This generalization is true of our data as well: many of our perfective grams are restricted to the past, and for the rest the perfective use typically refers to past events. Of course, the reason for this is the fact that past situations are most natually viewed as bounded. In fact, the notion of a perfective present event is anomalous, since by definition such a situation could not be viewed as bounded. [Unless we're not in the indicative! –kwami] Of course, future events can be viewed as bounded or unbounded, and a few of the [cross-linguistic] grams listed above have 'immediate future' as another use, but it is more common for this distinction to be relevant for presenting narratives, and narratives are set in the past (or historical present), and not usually in the future.

— kwami (talk) 00:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Disappointing, since I've cited him - but plainly false of Greek. The distinction between the tragic present and the tragic aorist is precisely one of aspect, and the statements deal exactly of the moment of speaking. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

What's false in what he says, since the aorist is generally past, and the tragic aorist is an exception to this rule? Isn't that the definition of an anomaly? — Eru·tuon 02:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not substantiated; the tragic aorist is perfectly natural - and presumably reflects actual speech - and can only apply to the present. The assumption that every counterexample is an exception is the road to pseudo-science, like the Ptolemaic cosmology. The majority of any natural language (including almost all of Wikipedia, except for a few patches of indirect discourse about fiction and futurology) deals with the past; is the "perfective aspect" more or less past than the others? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Two facts:

1. Present events are more commonly referred to using the present tense (imperfective) than the aorist tense (perfective).
2. The aorist is a past form with an augment,

   but the imperfective includes present and past forms (present tense, imperfect tense).

These suggest the view above, that the perfective is more naturally past than present. — Eru·tuon 17:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Definition of perfective

In my view, the descriptions of the aorist in the first paragraph ("simple", "summary", "complete", and "point") describe perfective aspect. The text after these descriptions notes that view. So, Sep, according to your view, how does the situation described by those words differ from the perfective aspect? — Eru·tuon 17:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Then they don't belong in this article, being off topic; definitions of perfective aspect belong in perfective aspect. But worst of all is the text repeatedly revert warred for is again bad writing:

a class of verb forms that generally portray a situation "simply" in "summary", "complete", or as a "point", whether the beginning, the end, or the situation in its entirety; that is, as having perfective aspect.

attempts to explain "simple", "summary", "complete", "point" - one and two  syllable words of straightforward meaning - by perfective aspect, five obscure syllables. This would be bad writing - explaining the slightly obscure by the much more obscure - for a general audience in any case; it is not helped by the underlying problem - the reason Erutonon has quoted four definitions: there is no general agreement on which of these several ideas "perfective aspect" means, exactly - and therefore whether the aspect the aorist has is exactly perfective. Again, we have had it claimed, with citations, that the perfective is timeless - and that it implicates pastness. Enough of measuring with a rubber ruler. 

If either of our persistent reverters will explain why that is is so crashingly important to them, perhaps we can do that without leaving the unhappy reader up the crick without a paddle.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:09, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The four terms are alternate ways of expressing the same idea — they don't represent significant disagreement. The point of mentioning perfective aspect is that it's equivalent to those terms — not that it's a better way of explaining them. If you have better language than "that is" to express equivalence, what is it?  — Eru·tuon 20:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The simplification of the list of adjectives is probably a good change, but this bounded, "simple" aspect is still perfective. This should still be stated, that aorist in Greek is primarily perfective aspect--a completed action viewed as a whole. We've laid the references out multiple times for your perusal. --Taivo (talk) 20:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Erutuon; the link at that point makes good sense to me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:35, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

sadly

this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_verbs#Tenses is much better for an avg reader like me; simple, clear, comprehensible, unlike this article filled with grad school level jargon; nothing wrong with gslj, but it should come after the simple stuff in an encylopedia. as a phd molecular biology, know how hard simple stuff is; urge you to keep trying — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.236.121.54 (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Simplify

Could a one sentence definition of the meaning of "aorist" (without the word "aorist" appearing anywhere in the sentence) be created so the reader who does not have the time to slog through the linguistics of the language can be told simply what aorist is? (It is more than past tense as the current lede suggests.)

Thank you!

Taram (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Why not spell the word in Greek--ἀόριστος , -ον?

ἀόριστος--means without boundaries; with the article ὁ ἀόριστος it refers to the Greek grammatical concept of aorist tense. ὁρίζω is the verb meaning to set up a boundary, to divide, etc The a-privative of (ἀ)--όριστος thus means "there is no boundary". People make more of it than warrants. Look at how other languages translate aorist. An event that occurred in the past, so giving it past tense designation is more than adequate. One should have sufficient wit to distinguish difference between tenses: perfect, future, present, and past. When the student understands the aspectual nature of imperfective, then the student is on the way to understanding grammar and linguistics. David Alan Black in "It's Still Greek to Me" (page 96) suggests seeing aorist as a snapshot while imperfective should be seen as a motion picture. He also says it has nothing real special about it. How other languages translate the Greek aorist suggests its significance.StevenTorrey (talk) 16:53, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Rewrote lede for general readers

The lede was not written in a way that would make it understandable to the general reader, which is the standard expectation on WP. I've rewritten it to make it more accessible, giving English-language examples to introduce the concept of aspect, which is unfamiliar to most people. The old lede also came off to me as overly POV on the question of whether the aorist is purely aspectual or also carries information about time. I've added a couple of references to give more of an idea of the spectrum of opinions on this topic. --Penflange (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2023 (UTC)