Talk:Aorist

Is Wikipedia a device for language reform?

The frankness of this this post by Taivo reveals two roots of the difficulties here. He would like to expunge from Wikipedia not merely "aorist tense" and "tense" (in the traditional sense), but "conjugation", claiming that it is a truly rare word.

• First, no, it isn't. It's more common than "perfective"; it's more common than most of the words we've been arguing about.
• Second, it may (arguendo) have problems in highly non-Indo-European languages; it may even have problems in analytic languages like English - but this article deals primarily with synthetic Indo-European languages: Greek, Sanskrit, Bulgarian, Old Church Slavonic, where "conjugation" is unambiguous and established terminology. They're the ones that have aorists.

But the fundamental difficulty here is the purpose of Wikipedia. Are we here to communicate with our readers, in English as she exists and as they understand it? Or are we here to reform English to something quite different?

Most of us think we are here to communicate: Wareh, Cynwolfe, Akhilleus, Radagast, Dbachmann, myself. Two editors think otherwise. Suggestions for where to go from here? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that my writing wasn't as clear as it should have been and so you misunderstood what I meant by "rare". I did not mean "conjugations", but "screeve". I simply used "verb classes" or "conjugations" as alternate terms with similar meanings to "screeve". "Screeve" is the rare term, not "conjugations". If you'll read that sentence again carefully, you'll see that was the meaning although a quick reading might lead to the misunderstanding that you got from it. The two sentences are structured, "'Screeve' is what others would call a 'verb class' or 'conjugation'. That [screeve] is a rare word." --Taivo (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

And, I'm afraid, PMAnderson, you are constantly overstating your support and understating ours. You seem to consistently forget to count Erutuon and MarkNutley when you list editors who insist on accurate terminology and focus only on Kwami and myself. Your assertion that correct terminology is somehow incomprehensible, is, well, incomprehensible. --Taivo (talk) 19:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Erutonon does not insist on anything; Mark Nutley also chiefly asks questions. Only you two insist on an obscure terminology which your own sources say does not fit (ancient) Greek very well; as far as I can see it doesn't fit Sanskrit or modern Bulgarian very well either. . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you're reading when you say "your own sources say does not fit". A.T. Robertson clearly wrote that the term "tense" does not fit Ancient Greek. Is that the term you mean? --Taivo (talk) 21:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

That's one statement of an extreme position, 75 95 years ago (from 1914; Robertson died in 1934) - doubtless in response to unwise claims that Greek is just like Latin, which it isn't. It isn't a simplified version of Russian, either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

And in fact what Robertson seems to be saying - since the local copy is in deep storage, I have to rely on the net for now - is that Greek tenses don't have the same functions as English ones. This is quite true, and not at all his discovery. Since he continues to use "tense" - and even identifies it with chronos - this appears to fail verification - again. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

We have numerous citations from the past decade that say the same thing, as you know full well. — kwami (talk) 22:03, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't know that. I know that you have cited careless statements making excessive generalizations from authors discussing something else. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

You have completely misread Robertson. He calls them "tenses", but very clearly says that he is stuck with an inappropriate term for verb forms that don't mark time. In the days before the term "aspect" came into use, that's about as unequivocal a description of aspect as one can get. And the date of his writing shows that this issue of how to describe the Greek verb forms is not a new one at all, but has been discussed by savvy linguists for nearly 100 years--long before they had the handy term "aspect" to hang their hats on. It's not an "extreme position" at all, being echoed in other works that have been cited here before--Goetchius' grammar of Koine and Morwood's grammar of Classical, to name just two of the many that have been cited by myself and Kwami. --Taivo (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

A quotation - or a section number - would be helpful. I should be able to see Robertson by Monday. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the page being referred to is here. — Eru·tuon 15:21, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Erutuon, that is the correct page. It clearly shows that Robertson considered time to not be an element of Greek "tense" (or at least not the primary one), so his use of "tense" corresponds to our present term "aspect" and not to our present understanding of "tense"--as a time marker. PMAnderson's deletion of the Robertson reference in the article was unjustified and I will revert his change. --Taivo (talk) 15:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

This looks like more research by Google. I agree with Wareh, a few sections up: this is not as decisive as it may appear out of context. The very next page makes clear what Robertson is actually talking about: the all-too-common habit of his contemporaries of saying that Euripides, for example, "used the aorist for the future"; a natural bad habit when most readers of one's book - and the ones the author expects to meet - are in training to construe Greek literally into English. What he means is correct; what he says is exaggerated. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

It may well be that there is a case that all the aorists in the limited corpus of the New Testament are aspected; it must be the case that most of them are. That's what Robertson's business - not Greek as a whole. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

The book weighs about 7 pounds and is sitting in all its 1500-page glory on my desk at home so don't accuse me of "Google research" (I bought it at Cody's Used Bookstore on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley about 1992). And I've read both the sections on aorist in their entirety (the section under "morphology" and the section under "syntax"). His quote is not taken out of context in the context of his entire treatment of the aorist. You're reading your own POV into his comments and stretching to find a "context" that fits it. His discussion is sound, and even if you think the NT has a limited view of the aorist, Robertson's work was a historical grammar, so his work encompassed all phases of Greek language history up until the 3d century CE. You can't get away from the crystal clear comment that he called "tense" in the sense of time an inappropriate connection to the meaning of aorist in Koine. You can't pull something off the next page and call that "context". --Taivo (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I will see if it has been retrieved and the cobwebs beaten off it; and if so, I will comment further. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:35, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma

Is this sentence necessary? Is it consensus? There is a list of sources on the other side as well; as the reverter who insists on it well knows.

Past time is not inherent in the aorist, but rather is an implicature, as is common for perfective verb forms

For that matter, is there any reason under heaven to say such a thing, when we have already said that the aorist can be used for present and future events? Does it mean any more? Does it mean anything, outside the realm of the Platonic Forms? How many readers have a hope of understanding it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Ideally we would have both sides, but you've objected to that too. There are numerous superficial descriptions that describe the aorist as "a past tense", and even Comrie describes it as being primarily past. Many more scholarly treatments, however, deny that it's inherently past. This is certainly a potential point of confusion, so yes, I think it's appropriate to address the issue directly. If you have a better way of addressing it, by all means present it. — kwami (talk) 18:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes; I object to the language. If this says no more than that the aorist doesn't have to be used of the past, which is the plain meaning of the ordinary sense of these silver-dollar words, it is already worded better. If not, what is the difference? Explain it to me, and then we can both explain it to the reader. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Still Edit Warring

This is edit warring: Here you deleted a section. Here I reverted your deletion because you had not justified it on the Talk Page. This is clear edit warring. The WP:BRD process says discuss after someone reverts your edit. Revert your reversion, PMAnderson, and discuss on Talk Page before escalating this. --Taivo (talk) 18:15, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I reverted PMA`s last edit as it was just being pointy mark nutley (talk) 18:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Is that hounding, or do you have a comment on the merits? I dispute the statement, since - as Kwami acknowledges - it is one-sided; I regard it as unhelpful and POV for reasons which I shall explain to him. Is the Climate Change case still open. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

You disputed it when we had both sides. Why should we take anything you say seriously? If it's biased, then propose a solution other than gutting it. — kwami (talk) 19:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I already have, some 18 hours ago. My questions in the section above are quite serious, not mere rhetoric, and remain unanswered. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

You are still edit warring with this revert, PMAnderson. When will you learn? --Taivo (talk) 19:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

When you and Kwami learn not to vandalize tags; I suppose. I'm still waiting to see if either of you can discuss this; starting with an explanation that reaches outside the web of self-referential verbiage here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

We have discussed it many times already in pages of rhetoric here. You don't recognize it because you automatically reject any argument that doesn't reflect your POV. You don't accept any of our references because they don't fit your POV. Until you reach consensus to remove the sentence, then it stays. --Taivo (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

No; because I don't accept "but we discussed that before" somewhere, somewhen as a responsive answer. But Taivo's post of 19:51 is an actual answer, almost in English. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Questions

1. Does this sentence mean anything more than "the aorist doesn't have to be used about the past" which would be the normal meaning of "not inherent"?
2. If it does mean more, what?
3. if it doesn't, why repeat it from two paragraphs before? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes and yes. The sentence says that the past tense meaning that many claim is the primary meaning of aorist is actually just an implication from the perfective use and not the primary meaning. It explains why is it often equated with the English past tense. --Taivo (talk) 19:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't do the last very well, since the past tense is inherently past. But let me see if I can finish Englishing it; Taivo has made great strides. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Not difficult; I'm a classicist, and have met Aristotelianism before - but it's not about observables. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I reverted you for the reason i said, you were being pointy, and i also see you again accuse editors of vandalism when it is not, perhaps it is time you stepped away from this article? Just for a while mark nutley (talk) 21:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Dependent clauses

The article states:

In conditional and dependent clauses, the aorist is usually subjunctive or optative (see sequence of tenses); these usages have the same range as the indicative.

What does this mean? What range of meaning does the aorist in dependent clauses share with the indicative? Aspectual, temporal? — Eru·tuon 20:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Both. The sources say that any function expressed by the indicative is expressed by the subjunctive or optative in a conditional or other dependent clause. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:27, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess I don't like the statement because it doesn't distinguish between places where an aorist expresses past time (such as an aorist optative in indirect speech) and where the mood determines time instead (subjunctive in future more vivid, for example). But perhaps such distinctions aren't appropriate for a general article. — Eru·tuon 20:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the sources I have uniformly state that the aorist in non-indicative moods is purely aspectual. --Taivo (talk) 21:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Do they say anything about aorist in indirect speech? — Eru·tuon 21:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll keep my eyes open. But since the aorist can express either in main clauses, it should express either in dependenct clauses. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)