The Discourse Function of The Imperfect

In this paper the functioning of the imperfect is examined, both within the overall Greek verbal system and on discourse level. To this end first the temporal properties of the various indicatives are discussed, the main question being: how much temporal information does a given indicative provide us with? It can be shown that the imperfect is the past tense par excellence of Greek, and that the aorist indicative is not inherently a past tense. If it were, a number of non-past uses of the aorist would be very difficult to explain. The common value of all aorists, it is argued, is that they express ‘closedness’. Its use as a past tense may, in its turn, be explained as being due to the general tendency to associate ‘perfectivity’ with ‘past’. The imperfect, then, is, and the aorist is not, inherently connected with narrative, i.e. the reporting of past events. The main issue of the second part is the functioning of the imperfect on discourse level. Apart from locating a state of affairs as non-closed, i.e. as ongoing. Thereby an imperfect creates a ‘framework’ or ‘time anchor’ for other states of affairs, and raises expectations as to what is going to happen next. Mostly, these expectations are fulfilled in the immediately following context, but, as an analysis of a large part of Herodotus’ Histories makes clear, imperfects also occur regularly at a break in the narrative, e.g. when the author puts in a long ethnographic description. The fulfilment of our ‘narrative expectations’ is, in that case, temporarily suspended, and the imperfect signals that the author will continue his original story elsewhere. By this ‘cataphoric’ function the imperfect serves as a powerful means to establish textual cohesion

Economics · Epistemology · Excellence · Imperfect · Linguistics · Mathematical economics · Narrative · Perfect information · Present tense · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy

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