User talk:TaivoLinguist/Aorist

''This article is about the use of the term "aorist" in general. For information about the Greek aorist in particular see Aorist (Greek)''

Aorist is a linguistic term that is generally used for perfective aspect in Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and its developments in Sanskrit and Greek. Over time the meaning of the PIE aorist has changed from aspect to tense in some languages.

Proto-Indo-European
In Proto-Indo-European, the aorist appears to have originated as a series of action forms for verbs.[39] Later, this was partially replaced by a tense system based on temporal relationships.[39] The verb system of Ancient Greek can therefore be described as "at the same time an aspectual and temporal system."[40]

Many Indo-European languages have lost the aorist as a distinct feature. In the development of Latin, for example, the aorist merged with the perfect.[41] In Greek and Sanskrit, the aorist aspect is marked by several morphological devices, which in the indicative are supplemented with the past-tense augment ἐ- e-, which contracts with an initial vowel. Three aorist morphological devices stand out as most common:

Sanskrit
Main article: Sanskrit verbs#Aorist system

Although quite common in older Sanskrit, the aorist is comparatively infrequent in much of classical Sanskrit, occurring, for example, 66 times in the first book of the Rāmāyaṇa, 8 times in the Hitopadeśa, 6 times in the Bhagavad-Gītā, and 6 times in the story of Śakuntalā in the Mahābhārata.[36]

In the later language, the aorist indicative had the value of a preterite, while in the older language it was closer in sense to the perfect.[36] The aorist was also used with the ancient injunctive mood, particularly in prohibitions.[37]

Greek, from Mycenean to Modern
In the Greek indicative mood,[3][19] the aorist generally refers to a past action, in a general way or as a completed event.[20] It may also be used to express a general statement in the present (the "gnomic aorist"),[21] less commonly a future event. Used these ways, it is described as the aorist indicative[22] or aorist tense.[20]

In other moods (subjunctive, optative, and imperative), the infinitive, and (largely) the participle, the aorist is purely aspectual.[dubious – discuss]}}[3] In these forms, it need have no temporal implication, and can act purely as a way of referring to an "action pure and simple" without the specific implications of the other aspects.

The aorist aspect is used in the imperative, for example, in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:11, which says "Give (δὸς dòs, aorist imperative) us this day our daily bread".[23] In contrast, the similar passage in Luke 11:3 uses the imperfective aspect, implying a sense of continuation with "Give (δίδου dídou, present imperative) us day by day our daily bread."[24]

The aorist indicative provides a corresponding contrast with the imperfect indicative (often called "imperfect tense") in describing the past. An example of this 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."[25] Here the imperfect refers to a past habitual or repeated act, and the aorist to a single one.

For comparison, the perfect indicative (often called "perfect tense") calls attention to the consequences generated by an action.[26] It is often used for the act of writing, where the ongoing consequence is a written document. A famous example is Pontius Pilate's "What I have written, I have written" (ὃ γέγραφα, γέγραφα ho gegrapha, gegrapha) in John 19:22.[27] The rare[28] perfect imperative occurs in Mark 4:39 (πεφίμωσο pephimōso);[29] this has the sense not just of "be still," as the KJV renders it, but commands an ongoing stillness, i.e. "be in a state of having been rendered harmless."[30] The perfect imperative was used in Greek mathematical language.[31]

The general rule here is that the aorist aspect lacks the specific implications of the perfect and the imperfective aspects. A table may help to clarify the above examples of this (the table does not include all uses of the aspects listed): About the present 	About the past 	Commands or requests Imperfective aspect 	Present imperfective ("present")[32] 	Imperfect indicative (past imperfective; e.g. προσεκύνουν prosekúnoun = "had been previously in the habit of bowing"[25]) 	Imperfective imperative (e.g. δίδου dídou = "give [repeatedly]") Perfect 	Present perfect ("perfect tense") (expresses present consequences of past events)[26] (e.g. γέγραφα gegrapha = "I have written", οἶδα oída = "I know"[33]) 	Past perfect ("pluperfect tense") 	Perfect imperative (e.g. πεφίμωσο pephimōso = "be [ongoingly] still") Aorist aspect 	Aorist indicative ("aorist tense")[20] (e.g. προσεκύνησαν prosekúnēsan = "bowed"[25]). Generally past, but often used gnomically.[21] 	Aorist imperative (e.g. δὸς dòs = "give") Use in discourse

Within narration, the imperfect tends to be used to set up the background of a scene, with the aorist working in the foreground, tracing the main line of the narration. Hermeneutic implications

Because Latin lacked an aorist, there have long been difficulties in translating the Greek New Testament into Western languages. The aorist has often been treated as making a strong statement about the aspect or even the time of an event, when in fact, due to it being the unmarked (default) form of the Greek verb, such implications are often left to context. Thus within New Testament hermeneutics, it is considered an exegetical fallacy to attach undue significance to uses of the aorist.[34] Although one may draw specific implications from an author's use of the imperfective or perfect, no such conclusions can, in general, be drawn from the use of the aorist, which may refer to an action "without specifying whether the action is unique, repeated, ingressive, instantaneous, past, or accomplished."[34] In particular, the aorist does not imply a "once for all" action, as it has commonly been misinterpreted.[35]