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Aorist (;
abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to
past events History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the Indo-European grammatical tradition, such as Middle Persian, Sanskrit,
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
, the South Slavic languages, and Georgian, also have forms referred to as aorist. The word comes from Ancient Greek "indefinite", as the aorist was the unmarked (default) form of the verb, and thus did not have the implications of the
imperfective aspect The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a gen ...
, which referred to an ongoing or repeated situation, or the perfect, which referred to a situation with a continuing relevance; instead it described an action "pure and simple". This does not mean, however, that the aorist was aspectually neutral, see Because the aorist was the unmarked aspect in Ancient Greek, the term is sometimes applied to unmarked verb forms in other languages, such as the habitual aspect in Turkish.


Indo-European languages


Proto-Indo-European

In Proto-Indo-European, the aorist appears to have originated as a series of verb forms expressing manner of action. Michael Meier-Brügger, Matthias Fritz, Manfred Mayrhofer,
Indo-European Linguistics
', Walter de Gruyter, 2003, , pp. 173–176.
Proto-Indo-European had a three-way aspectual opposition, traditionally called "present", "aorist", and "perfect", which are thought to have been, respectively,
imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...
,
perfective The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the im ...
, and
stative According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are ...
(resultant state) aspects. By the time of Classical Greek, this system was maintained largely in independent instances of the non-indicative moods and in the nonfinite forms. But in the indicative, and in dependent clauses with the subjunctive and
optative The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mood ...
, the aspects took on temporal significance. In this manner, the aorist was often used as an unmarked past tense, and the perfect came to develop a
resultative In linguistics, a resultative (abbreviated ) is a form that expresses that something or someone has undergone a change in state as the result of the completion of an event. Resultatives appear as predicates of sentences, and are generally composed ...
use, which is why the term perfect is used for this meaning in modern languages. Other Indo-European languages lost the aorist entirely. In the development of Latin, for example, the aorist merged with the perfect. The preterites (past perfectives) of the Romance languages, which are sometimes called 'aorist', are an independent development.


Greek

In Ancient Greek, the indicative aorist is one of the two main forms used in telling a story; it is used for undivided events, such as the individual steps in a continuous process (narrative aorist); it is also used for events that took place before the story itself (past-within-past). The aorist indicative is also used to express things that happen in general, without asserting a time (the "
gnomic Gnomic may refer to: * Gnomic aspect, a grammatical mood or tense expressing a general truth * Gnomic will, a concept in Eastern Orthodox theology * Gnomic poetry, a poetic form * A Gnome (rhetoric) or gnomic saying See also * Gnomon * Gnomonic ...
aorist"). It can also be used of present and future events; the aorist also has several specialized senses meaning present action. Non-indicative forms of the aorist (subjunctives, optatives, imperatives, infinitives) are usually purely aspectual, with certain exceptions including
indirect speech In linguistics, indirect speech (also reported speech or indirect discourse) is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming' ...
constructions and the use of optative as part of the
sequence of tenses The sequence of tenses (known in Latin as ''consecutio temporum'', and also known as agreement of tenses, succession of tenses and tense harmony) is a set of grammatical rules of a particular language, governing the agreement between the tenses o ...
in dependent clauses. There are aorist infinitives and imperatives that do not imply temporality at all. For example, the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:11 uses the aorist imperative in "Give ( ) us ''this day'' our daily bread", in contrast to the analogous passage in Luke 11:3, which uses the
imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...
aspect, implying repetition, with "Give ( , present imperative) us ''day by day'' our daily bread." 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 ( , imperfect) to him, bowed ( , aorist) to him even then." Here the imperfect refers to a past habitual or repeated act, and the aorist to a single one. There is disagreement as to which functions of the Greek aorist are inherent within it. Some of the disagreement applies to the history of the development of the various functions and forms. Most grammarians differentiate the aorist indicative from the non-indicative aorists. Many authors hold that the aorist tends to be about the past because it is perfective, and perfectives tend to describe completed actions; others that the aorist indicative and to some extent the participle is essentially a mixture of past tense and perfective aspect.


Hermeneutic implications

Because the aorist was not maintained in either Latin or the Germanic languages, there have long been difficulties in translating the Greek New Testament into Western languages. The aorist has often been interpreted as making a strong statement about the aspect or even the time of an event, when, in fact, due to its 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. 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."
D. A. Carson Donald Arthur Carson (born December 21, 1946) is an evangelical biblical scholar. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and president and co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He has written ...
, ''Exegetical Fallacies'', Baker Book House, 1984, , p. 70.
In particular, the aorist does not imply a "once for all" action, as it has commonly been misinterpreted, although it frequently refers to a simple, non-repeated action.
Grant R. Osborne Grant R. Osborne (July 7, 1942 – November 4, 2018) was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. He was Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Biography Education Osborne got a B.A. from the Fort Wayne ...
,
The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation
', 2nd ed., InterVarsity Press, 2006, , p. 69.


Sanskrit

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 The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuru ...
. 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. The aorist was also used with the ancient
injunctive mood The injunctive mood is a grammatical mood in Sanskrit that was characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless aorist or imperfect. It typically stood in a main clause and had a subjunctive or imperativ ...
, particularly in prohibitions.


Slavic languages

The Indo-European aorist was inherited by the Slavic languages but has survived intact only in the South Slavic languages. It retains its function entirely in the
Eastern South Slavic The Eastern South Slavic dialects form the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic languages. They are spoken mostly in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, and adjacent areas in the neighbouring countries. They form the so-called Balkan Slavic lin ...
languages, Bulgarian and
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
. However, in
Western South Slavic The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches ( West and E ...
languages it has become, along with the imperfect and
pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...
, largely obsolete in daily parlance and mostly superseded by the perfect and
circumlocution Circumlocution (also called circumduction, circumvolution, periphrasis, kenning, or ambage) is the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea. It is sometimes necessary in communication (for example, to work around lexical g ...
. The aorist is part of the standardized varieties of Serbo-Croatian but is no longer part of Standard Slovene. In both languages, the aorist appears mostly in older literature, scripture, religious services and legislation and so carries an archaic tone. As such, its use can be construed as pretentious and bombastic. Its use does not cause ambiguity, as Slavic verbs have distinct
grammatical aspects In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...
to convey related, yet distinct, meanings. The prevalence of the aorist varied by region prior to the grammatical changes during the
communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
' rise to power in
SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Y ...
after World War II. Historically, in Croatia and Croatian dialects, the aorist was naturally displaced by the perfect in most dialects (
Chakavian Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , sh-Latn, čakavski proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalm ...
, Kajkavian and Shtokavian) In Serbia and Serbian dialects, the aorist was historically commonly used to describe the past. In 1933, the Serbian linguist
Aleksandar Belić Aleksandar Belić (Serbian Cyrillic: Александар Белић, ; 15 August 1876 – 26 February 1960) was a Serbian linguist and academic. Biography Belić was born in Belgrade. After studying Slavic languages in Belgrade, Odessa, and M ...
was tasked by the authorities of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 ...
with creating a formal grammar for the new Serbo-Croatian standard. He decided to curb the use of the aorist by noting that there were many speakers of the language "in Yugoslavia who rarely use aorist, or do not use it at all". In an effort to reinforce the use of the unified and standardized language in public and education, the usage of the aorist gradually became prescriptively stigmatized and eventually excluded from official use in
PR Serbia , life_span = 1944–1992 , status = Constituent state of Yugoslavia , p1 = Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia , flag_p1 = Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg , p2 ...
.Aco Nevski
'Past Tenses in Serbian language and modern trends of their use'
/ref> Even so, it is still widespread in rural areas of Serbia, especially among the older and less educated part of the population. In standardized forms, the aorist is used for witnessed actions from a specific time in the past, mostly with verbs of perfective aspect. In modern forms of communication, the aorist has experienced something of a revival among younger speakers in Serbia, as its forms are simpler and shorter to type out than the perfect. In Bulgarian, which has produced a new regular formation, the aorist is used in indirect and in presumptive quotations. Bulgarian has separate inflections for aorist (past imperfective) and general perfective. The aorist may be used with the imperfective to produce a compound perfective–imperfective aspect.
Bernard Comrie Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages. Early life and education Comrie was born in Sunderland, England on 23 M ...
,
Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems
', Cambridge University Press, 1976, , p 12.
The aorist in Macedonian is called the "past definite complete tense" () and refers to a completed action in the past tense. It most often corresponds to the simple past tense in English: ''I read the book, I wrote the letter, I ate my supper'', etc. In contemporary standard Macedonian, the aorist is formed almost exclusively from perfective verbs. The formation of the aorist for most verbs is not complex, but there are numerous small subcategories that must be learned. All verbs in the aorist (except ) take the same endings, but there are complexities in the aorist stem vowel and possible consonant alternations. All verbs (except ) take the following endings in the aorist: (The sign ∅ indicates a zero ending: nothing is added after the stem vowel.) In East and
West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encompas ...
the aorist is obsolete everywhere except for the copula 'to be' which is still used to mark the
Conditional mood The conditional mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
. In the East Slavic Languages it is not inflected for number or person. It's 'бы' in Russian and Belarusian, and 'би' in Ukrainian, but is commonly shortened to 'б' in all of those. The Conditional mood is formed by putting it after the main verb In the West Slavic Languages it is inflected and works similiar to East Slavic Languages except that it can be put before the main verb. These are the inflections in Polish and Czech respectively:


Morphology

In the Indo-European languages Greek and Sanskrit, the aorist stem is marked by several morphological devices (the aorist indicative also has the past-tense augment ''e-'', which
contracts A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
with the initial vowel). Three aorist morphological devices stand out as most common:


South Caucasian languages

In Georgian and Svan, the aorist marks perfective aspect. In the indicative, it marks completed events. In other moods, it marks events that are yet to be completed. In
Mingrelian Mingrelian may refer to: *the Mingrelians *the Mingrelian language Mingrelian or Megrelian (, ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called k ...
and Laz, the aorist is basically a past tense and can be combined with both perfective and imperfective aspects as well as the imperative and the subjunctive moods.


Northeast Caucasian languages

In
Khinalug Khinalug, Khynalyg, or Khinalyg ( az, Xınalıq; Khinalug: ''Kətş''; also rendered as Khanaluka, Khanalyk, Khinalykh, or Khynalyk), is an ancient Caucasian village going back to the Caucasian Albanian period. It is located high up in the mounta ...
, the aorist is a perfective aspect, and the two terms ("aorist" and "perfective") are often used interchangeably. In
Udi Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People * Udi Gal (born 1979), Israeli Olympic sailor * Udi Vaks (born 1979), Israeli Olympic judoka ...
, the aorist is an imperfective aspect that is usually a past tense but can also replace the present tense.


Turkish

In Turkish, the aorist ( tr, geniş zaman, literally "broad time") is a habitual aspect and is similar to the English
present simple The simple present, present simple or present indefinite is one of the verb forms associated with the present tense in modern English. It is commonly referred to as a tense, although it also encodes certain information about aspect in addition ...
. For example, the statement ("I do not eat meat") informs the listener that the speaker is a vegetarian and not merely that he happens not to be eating meat at that very moment. To convey the latter message, the
present progressive The present continuous, also called the present progressive or present imperfect, is a verb form used in modern English that combines the present tense with the continuous aspect. It is formed by the present tense form of be and the present part ...
("I' am not eating meat") would be appropriate. The Turkish aorist is commonly used in enquiries about someone's wishes, as in ("Would you like to eat something?"). That makes a question like ambiguous, as the listener may interpret it as an informational question ("Are you someone who eats pork"?) or as an offer ("Would you
ike to Ike or IKE may refer to: People * Ike (given name), a list of people with the name or nickname * Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II and President of the United States Surname * ...
eat pork?").


Quenya

In J. R. R. Tolkien's
constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
Quenya Quenya ()Tolkien wrote in his "Outline of Phonology" (in '' Parma Eldalamberon'' 19, p. 74) dedicated to the phonology of Quenya: is "a sound as in English ''new''". In Quenya is a combination of consonants, ibidem., p. 81. is a constructed l ...
, the aorist is a
gnomic Gnomic may refer to: * Gnomic aspect, a grammatical mood or tense expressing a general truth * Gnomic will, a concept in Eastern Orthodox theology * Gnomic poetry, a poetic form * A Gnome (rhetoric) or gnomic saying See also * Gnomon * Gnomonic ...
tense or simple present that expresses general facts or simple present actions.
Helge Fauskanger Helge Kåre Fauskanger (born 17 August 1971) is a Norwegian author and philologist. In Norway he is known as a crime novelist; elsewhere, he is best known as a Tolkien scholar with an interest in Tolkien's constructed languages. Education Faus ...

Ardalambion
Quenya - The Ancient Tongue


See also

* * Preterite


References


External links


Greek tenses
{{Grammatical aspects Grammatical aspects Grammatical tenses