Aorist
Encyclopedia
Aorist is a philological term originally from Indo-European studies, referring to verb forms of various languages that are not necessarily related
or similar in meaning. In Indo-European languages
such as Greek
, Sanskrit
, Bulgarian
and Macedonian
, as well as languages influenced by the Indo-European tradition, such as Georgian
, the term is usually used for forms that express perfective aspect
and often refer to past events. "Aorist" comes from Ancient Greek aóristos "indefinite", because it was the unmarked
(default) form of the verb, and thus did not have the implications of the imperfective aspect
, which referred to an ongoing or repeated situation, or the perfect, which referred to a situation with a continuing relevance, but described an action "pure and simple".
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
.
, the aorist appears to have originated as a series of verb forms expressing manner of action. Proto-Indo-European had a three-way aspectual opposition, traditionally called "present", "aorist", and "perfect", which are thought to have been, respectively, imperfective
, perfective
, and stative
(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 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 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 preterite
s (past perfectives) of the Romance languages, which are sometimes called 'aorist', are an independent development.
, 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 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
constructions and the use of optative as part of the sequence of tenses 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 (δός dós) us this day our daily bread", in contrast to the analogous passage in Luke 11:3, which uses the imperfective aspect, implying repetition, with "Give (δίδου dídou, 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 (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.
There is disagreement as to which functions of the Greek aorist are inherent within it. 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 it is essentially a mixture of past tense and perfective aspect
.
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." In particular, the aorist does not imply a "once for all" action, as it has commonly been misinterpreted.
, 8 times in the Hitopadeśa
, 6 times in the Bhagavad-Gītā
, and 6 times in the story of Śakuntalā
in the Mahābhārata
.
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
, particularly in prohibitions.
in general; it is obsolete, or virtually so, in most of them. However, the aorist functions in South Slavic languages like Bulgarian
and Macedonian language
.
Until recently, in Serbian and Croatian languages
, the aorist had mostly been used in literary language and legal writing. The predominantly young users of the modern means of communication (SMS, email) have found advantages of using the rarely spoken verb forms like aorist and imperfect as they require less characters compared to the compound verbs, thus bringing them back to popular use.
In Bulgarian, which has produced a new regular formation, the aorist is used in indirect
and presumptive quotations. Bulgarian has separate inflections for aorist (past imperfective) and general perfective. The aorist may be used with the imperfective, producing a compound perfective-imperfective aspect.
The aorist in Macedonian is called "past definite complete tense" (минато определено свршено време) and it 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. While all verbs in the aorist (except сум) take the same endings, there are complexities in the aorist stem vowel and possible consonant alternations. All verbs (except сум) take the following endings in the aorist:
(The sign # indicates a zero ending, i.e., nothing is added after the stem vowel.")
Greek
and Sanskrit
, the aorist stem
is marked by several morphological devices (the aorist indicative also has the past-tense augment
ἐ- e-, which contracts
with the initial vowel
). Three aorist morphological devices stand out as most common:
and Svan
, the aorist marks perfective aspect. In the indicative, it marks completed events; in other moods it marks events yet to be completed.
In Mingrelian and Laz
, the aorist is basically a past tense and can be combined with both perfective and imperfective aspects as well as imperative and subjunctive moods.
, the aorist is a perfective aspect and the two terms ("aorist" and "perfective") are often used interchangeably.
In Udi
, the aorist is an imperfective aspect that is usually a past tense, but can also replace the present tense.
's constructed language
Quenya
, the aorist is a gnomic tense or simple present that expresses general facts or simple present actions.
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
or similar in meaning. In Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
such as Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
and Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
, as well as languages influenced by the Indo-European tradition, such as Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, the term is usually used for forms that express perfective aspect
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
and often refer to past events. "Aorist" comes from Ancient Greek aóristos "indefinite", because it was the unmarked
Markedness
Markedness is a specific kind of asymmetry relationship between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one...
(default) form of the verb, and thus did not have the implications of the imperfective aspect
Imperfective aspect
The imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure, such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future...
, which referred to an ongoing or repeated situation, or the perfect, which referred to a situation with a continuing relevance, but described an action "pure and simple".
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
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
.
Proto-Indo-European
In Proto-Indo-EuropeanProto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
, the aorist appears to have originated as a series of verb forms expressing manner of action. Proto-Indo-European had a three-way aspectual opposition, traditionally called "present", "aorist", and "perfect", which are thought to have been, respectively, imperfective
Imperfective aspect
The imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure, such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future...
, perfective
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
, and stative
Stative verb
A stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...
(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 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 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 preterite
Preterite
The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
s (past perfectives) of the Romance languages, which are sometimes called 'aorist', are an independent development.
French
The Past Definite (also known as the Simple Past) possesses an aorist sense. The Past Definite is a literary tense, not used in spoken language. However, in particular in the modern day, it is used increasingly less frequently even in written form.Greek
In the Ancient GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, 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 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
Indirect speech
In grammar, indirect or reported speech is a way of reporting a statement or question. A reported question is called an indirect question. Unlike direct speech, indirect speech does not phrase the statement or question the way the original speaker did; instead, certain grammatical categories are...
constructions and the use of optative as part of the sequence of tenses in dependent clauses. There are aorist infinitives and imperatives that do not imply temporality at all. For example, the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
in Matthew 6:11 uses the aorist imperative in "Give (δός dós) us this day our daily bread", in contrast to the analogous passage in Luke 11:3, which uses the imperfective aspect, implying repetition, with "Give (δίδου dídou, 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
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
's Anabasis
Anabasis (Xenophon)
Anabasis is the most famous work, in seven books, of the Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon. The journey it narrates is his best known accomplishment and "one of the great adventures in human history," as Will Durant expressed the common assessment.- The account :Xenophon accompanied...
, 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.
There is disagreement as to which functions of the Greek aorist are inherent within it. 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 it is essentially a mixture of past tense and perfective aspect
Perfective past
In grammar, the perfective past is the perfective aspect of the past tense. In many languages, the perfective only occurs in the past tense; this past perfective form has traditionally been called the preterite in languages with a Latin grammatical tradition, such as the Romance languages, and the...
.
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 TestamentNew Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old 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
Markedness
Markedness is a specific kind of asymmetry relationship between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one...
(default) form of the Greek verb, such implications are often left to context. Thus, within New Testament hermeneutics, it is considered an exegetical
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
fallacy
Fallacy
In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually an incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor , or take advantage of social relationships between people...
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." In particular, the aorist does not imply a "once for all" action, as it has commonly been misinterpreted.
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 RāmāyaṇaRamayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
, 8 times in the Hitopadeśa
Hitopadesha
Hitopadesha is a collection of Sanskrit fables in prose and verse written in the 12 century C.E. It is an independent treatment of the Panchatantra...
, 6 times in the Bhagavad-Gītā
Bhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...
, and 6 times in the story of Śakuntalā
Shakuntala
In Hindu mythology Shakuntala is the wife of Dushyanta and the mother of Emperor Bharata. Her story is told in the Mahabharata and dramatized by Kalidasa in his play Abhijñānaśākuntalam .-Etymology:Rishi Kanva found her in forest as a baby surrounded by Shakunta birds...
in the Mahābhārata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
.
In the later language, the aorist indicative had the value of a preterite
Preterite
The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
, while in the older language it was closer in sense to the perfect. The aorist was also used with the ancient injunctive mood
Injunctive mood
The injunctive mood was a mood in Sanskrit 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 imperative meaning; for example, it could indicate intention, e.g. "Indra's heroic...
, particularly in prohibitions.
Slavic languages
The Indo-European aorist was inherited by the Slavic languagesSlavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
in general; it is obsolete, or virtually so, in most of them. However, the aorist functions in South Slavic languages like Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
and Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
.
Until recently, in Serbian and Croatian languages
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
, the aorist had mostly been used in literary language and legal writing. The predominantly young users of the modern means of communication (SMS, email) have found advantages of using the rarely spoken verb forms like aorist and imperfect as they require less characters compared to the compound verbs, thus bringing them back to popular use.
In Bulgarian, which has produced a new regular formation, the aorist is used in indirect
Indirect speech
In grammar, indirect or reported speech is a way of reporting a statement or question. A reported question is called an indirect question. Unlike direct speech, indirect speech does not phrase the statement or question the way the original speaker did; instead, certain grammatical categories are...
and presumptive quotations. Bulgarian has separate inflections for aorist (past imperfective) and general perfective. The aorist may be used with the imperfective, producing a compound perfective-imperfective aspect.
The aorist in Macedonian is called "past definite complete tense" (минато определено свршено време) and it 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. While all verbs in the aorist (except сум) take the same endings, there are complexities in the aorist stem vowel and possible consonant alternations. All verbs (except сум) take the following endings in the aorist:
| јас -в | ние -вме |
| ти - # | вие -вте |
| тој - # | тие -а / -ја |
(The sign # indicates a zero ending, i.e., nothing is added after the stem vowel.")
Morphology
In the Indo-European languagesIndo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, the aorist stem
Word stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
is marked by several morphological devices (the aorist indicative also has the past-tense augment
Augment (linguistics)
In linguistics, the augment is a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages, most notably Greek, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages such as Sanskrit, to form the past tenses.-Indo-European languages:...
ἐ- e-, which contracts
Crasis
Crasis is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong — making one word out of two. Crasis occurs in Portuguese and Arabic as well as in Ancient Greek, where it was first described.-French:...
with the initial vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
). Three aorist morphological devices stand out as most common:
| Morphology | Description, examples of aorist tense and aorist imperative |
|---|---|
| suffix Proto-Indo-European root The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots always have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run", as opposed to nouns , adjectives , or other parts of speech. Roots never occur alone in the language... ing of s |
The first, weak, s-, or sigma Sigma Sigma is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and carries the 'S' sound. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 200. When used at the end of a word, and the word is not all upper case, the final form is used, e.g... tic aorist is the most common in Greek.
|
| zero-grade of ablaut Indo-European ablaut In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages... , lack of suffix / nasal infix Nasal infix The nasal infix is a reconstructed nasal consonant or syllable that was inserted into the stem of a word in the Proto-Indo-European language, that has reflexes in several modern European languages... |
The second or strong aorist uses the bare root Proto-Indo-European root The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots always have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run", as opposed to nouns , adjectives , or other parts of speech. Roots never occur alone in the language... of the verb without the e of ablaut or the present-tense suffix or nasal infix. Molon labe The Ancient Greek phrase ' means "Come and take them". It is a classical expression of defiance reportedly spoken by King Leonidas I in response to the Persian army's demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae... " |
| reduplication Reduplication Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.... |
Reduplication Reduplication Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.... is more common in the perfect, but a few Greek verbs use it in the aorist. The reduplicated aorist is more common in Sanskrit Sanskrit Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand... , e.g. ájījanam "I gave birth." |
South Caucasian languages
In GeorgianGeorgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
and Svan
Svan language
The Svan language is a Kartvelian language spoken in the Western Georgian region of Svaneti primarily by the Georgians of Svan origin...
, the aorist marks perfective aspect. In the indicative, it marks completed events; in other moods it marks events yet to be completed.
In Mingrelian and Laz
Laz language
The Laz language is a South Caucasian language spoken by the Laz people on the Southeast shore of the Black Sea...
, the aorist is basically a past tense and can be combined with both perfective and imperfective aspects as well as imperative and subjunctive moods.
Northeast Caucasian languages
In KhinalugKhinalug language
Khinalug is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by about 1,500 people in the villages of Khinalug and Gülüstan in the mountains of Quba Rayon, northern Azerbaijan...
, the aorist is a perfective aspect and the two terms ("aorist" and "perfective") are often used interchangeably.
In Udi
Udi language
The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan.The language is spoken by about...
, the aorist is an imperfective aspect that is usually a past tense, but can also replace the present tense.
Quenya
In J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's constructed language
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
Quenya
Quenya
Quenya is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his Secondary world, often called Middle-earth.Quenya is one of the many Elvish languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called Quendi in Quenya. The tongue actually called Quenya was in origin the speech of two clans of Elves...
, the aorist is a gnomic tense or simple present that expresses general facts or simple present actions.
See also
- Ancient Greek grammar: Dependence of moods and tenses
- PreteritePreteriteThe preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...