>Well, since we should stick to Tolkien related stuff ( well, whatever ), I

>have a question with two parts: what is _aorist_ mean



"Aorist" is a name of a tense of a verb. The word itself means "unlimited" or

"undetermined" or such (greek "alfa privativum" + "horos"="limit") and in Greek

it means a past tense without any further qualifications - for Greek has got an

imperfect, too, which signifies an past action that was beeing done for some

time, or the finish of what is not expressed. There is a slight similarity

between German "Praeteritum" and greek "aorist", or between latin "perfectum"

and greek "aorist", but latin perfect means always that the action is finished -

the greek aorist not always so, though, thanks to the contrast with the

imperfect, quite often it is so used. But the aorist itself bears no other

signification, than the past time - that's why it is called "a-horistos" -

"undetermined".



The meaning of the greek word "aoristos" rather than its aplication to a greek

past tense was presumably the reason why the Quenya aorist was so called. For it

is not a PAST tense in Quenya, but a PRESENT or something like "gnomic

present" - a tense that does not really express ANY time (therefore "aoristos"),

as I understand it, and is mostly used in such cases as general statements,

eternal truths etc . E.g. "Murder is evil" - you do not mean that NOW in the

present murder is evil, but simly that it is so regardless to any time. (But in

Namaarie: Laurie LANTAR lassi - the form "lantar" is an aorist (present would be

?lantear?), although the poet is certainly describing a PRESENT situation - it

seems that the aorist is so "aoristos" that it can express almost everything.

What's the experts' opinion?) In English the distinction between Quenya aorist

and present (called sometimes "continuative") at least roughly corresponds, as

has been suggested, to the distinction between present simple and present

continuous tense (in E.: "Like gold fal the leaves...", not "are falling").



Lukas

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Lukas Novak wrote:



> The meaning of the greek word "aoristos" rather than its aplication to a

> greek past tense was presumably the reason why the Quenya aorist was so

> called. For it is not a PAST tense in Quenya, but a PRESENT or something

> like "gnomic present"



We should define "gnomic" for the original enquirer, who is very young and has

stated that he knows very little grammatical or other linguistic terminology.



The word "gnomic" is taken from the Greek _gnoomee_ "opinion", often in the

sense of a proverbial opinion.  Thus, Lukas' examples of _gnomic_ presents in

English:



	 Murder is evil

	 Leaves fall down



One of the reasons for calling the Quenya tense in question the _aorist_ is

that in Greek, _gnomic_ statements like the above are stated in the _aorist_

tense, that is, as if in English we said



	 Murder was evil

	 Leaves fell down



to mean the same thing as Lukas' examples.



I hope that helps.



								 Rich

-------

Ack! Two posts in three days, and this one is even a bit relevant. :)



I write not to criticize the post I'm replying to, but to dig a little

deeper into the topic of just what the 'aorist' is. Properly speaking,

the 'aorist' is not a tense at all, it is an 'aspect' of a verb. Aspects

of a verb denote different types of action rather than different times

of action, as tenses do. Other aspects are inchoative (I start to walk,

started to walk, will start to walk), progressive (I am walking, was

walking, will be walking, will have been walking, etc.), complexive (I

start to walk and walk and finish walking), etc.



Interestingly, since in Western culture the main language that uses the

aorist is Classical Greek, and CG uses it as the simple past tense, most

sources will define the aorist as a tense: not only dictionaries, but

even Smyth's revered (as far as English sources go) Greek Grammar

(excellent for most grammatical definitions; and totally available

online as was pointed out to me earlier on Elfling:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=smyth+30048&vers=english

). In fact, among the numerous sources available in my personal library,

the only one I could find that properly noted that the aorist is really

an aspect, not a tense, is Chantraine's Grammaire Homerique, a beloved

work among most students of Homer. Chantraine explains that in Greek,

what we call the 'stems' of the different tenses of verbs were

inherently stems of different aspects, with tense more properly being

indicated by the 'augment' for the past (a prefixed 'e' before past

stems starting with a consonant, a lengthening of the vowel for past

stems starting with a vowel). (Chantraine, GH, tome II, p. 183; he

references for a more thorough discussion Schwyzer-Debrunner,

Griechische Grammatik (pp. 246ff), which I alas don't have a copy of.)



In addition, a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin I have (Buck)

notes that the aorist was used as the past tense in Sanskrit as well

(but I personally know nothing of that language). So perhaps the use of

the aorist, and perhaps its use as aspect for tense, goes back to

proto-IndoEuropean. Others more knowledgeable might comment on that. ...



Anyway, the aorist is 'properly' an aspect, namely the aspect of simple

or undefined action, not beginning, continuing, completed, or anything

else. Thus it's name, meaning, as Lukas Novak noted, 'unlimited' (in the

sense of 'not specialized'). That the speakers and writers of classical

Greek actually 'understood' the aorist as more an aspect than a tense

(though I give this subject very superficial attention here, being

rather overlong for a post anyway), we can see, for example, from one

common Greek grammatical idiom, the 'gnomic aorist'. The aorist was used

by them, in addition to serving as the simple past tense, as the form

for proverbs or adages (gnomai), as indicating general truths, a sense

of the action being 'unlimited' in time or space. Thus, sayings like "A

stitch in time saves nine" or "Too many chefs spoil the soup" would

often use a verb in the aorist "tense", rather than the present tense as

English does. And when such statement had dependent clauses included,

the gnomic aorist was treated as a primary (present) tense, not

secondary (past) tense, for determining what mood of verb would be used

in the dependent clause. Obviously, they could not have used the aorist

in such a way if they thought of it as only a 'past tense'.



Before applying this to Tolkien, one further note on how recognizing

aspects of verbs can be confusing. Most (I presume without researching

it) non-copulative verbs (to be, to seem, etc.) denote a simple action.

But when they denote an action that is inherently continuative, the use

of the aorist may have a special meaning (in Greek at least). Thus, for

example, the verb 'to rule' denotes an ongoing activity. So in Greek,

'he ruled' is normally put into the imperfect tense, since that tense

(tense/aspect) in Greek signifies a (past) continuing action. When a

classical Greek author wrote 'eerksa', the aorist of archo, I rule,

instead of the normal eerchen, the imperfect, s/he was saying 'became

ruler' rather than 'ruled'. :)



In any case, as a linguist, Tolkien was quite aware of what the aorist

really was. In what seems to me typical of his creativeness and 'fun' in

creating languages, he took the idea of of the aorist aspect, and said,

in effect, 'What if a language used the aorist to contrast *present*

general (unlimited) actions to present continuative actions instead of

using it to contrast past general actions to present continuative?' The

result is Tolkien's 'present aorist'. :)  He thus created a language

that could distinguish continuative from general present actions simply,

something classical Greek could not readily do, and which modern English

and French, for example, can only do with extra words (I walk, I am

walking; je marche, je suis en train de marcher). I suspect Tolkien

enjoyed the elegance of this basic grammatical distinction, which I am

not aware that any 'living' language has. Of course, I know very few of

the thousands of languages of human speech. If anyone knows of a

language that has different simple verb forms for the present general

and continuative, I'd be fascinated to learn of them (and to see if

Tolkien might have been familiar with them). I rather suspect though

that Tolkien felt he was creating something 'new' with the present

aorist form.



Comments, criticisms, and corrections on my ramblings would be enjoyed.



Jerry Caveney

On Wed, 02 Aug 2000, Jerry Caveney wrote:



> Properly speaking, the 'aorist' is not a tense at all, it is an 'aspect' of a

> verb. Aspects of a verb denote different types of action rather than

> different times of action, as tenses do.  Other aspects are inchoative (I

> start to walk, started to walk, will start to walk), progressive (I am

> walking, was walking, will be walking, will have been walking, etc.),

> complexive (I start to walk and walk and finish walking), etc.



There is a little bit of confusion here.



The (Greek) aorist properly speaking is a past tense with punctual aspect (that

is, the action is taken as a complete whole, a point in time, rather than as

having any duration:  "she walked" vs. "she was walking").  Because the Greek

aorist is the best known example of punctual aspect to many speakers of western

European languages, punctual aspect is sometimes referred to as "aoristic", but

the two should not be confused.



As has been stated, Tolkien called one of his tenses "aorist"; he did not by

this refer to punctual aspect, however, but rather to the use of the Greek

aorist tense in proverbial statements (the "gnomic aorist").



> In addition, a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin I have (Buck) notes

> that the aorist was used as the past tense in Sanskrit as well (but I

> personally know nothing of that language). So perhaps the use of the aorist,

> and perhaps its use as aspect for tense, goes back to proto-IndoEuropean.

> Others more knowledgeable might comment on that. ...



I hope I may qualify as someone more knowledgeable on this topic.



There is a past tense in Sanskrit whose formations are cognate with those of

the Greek aorist, and which is therefore called "aorist" in Western grammars.

However, its usage is very different from the Greek aorist.  Those who wish to

hear some of the details can look up the discussions (search for "aorist") on

the archives of the Indo-European mailing list at



	 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/indo-european.html



(NB:  I am the list owner and moderator for the IE and Nostratic lists.)



Aspect, also called _Aktionsart_, was introduced to Indo-European linguistics

from Slavic studies, where punctual and durative aspect are basics of verb

formation onto which tense is layered.  Punctual verbs in Slavic languages have

both a past tense and a present (which is translated into non-Slavic languages

as a *future* tense).  For several decades, it has been fashionable to see the

equivalent of Slavic aspect in the Proto-Indo-European verb; however, a growing

number of Indo-Europeanists have grown uncomfortable with this Procrustean bed.

It seems more likely that the Slavic and Greek aspectual usages independently

grew out of a PIE system that was *not* the same as either.



For further introductory reading on tense and aspect, I recommend two books by

Bernard Comrie, cleverly entitled _Tense_ and _Aspect_, both in the Cambridge

Textbooks in Linguistics series.  Both are readily available from Amazon.com.



> Of course, I know very few of the thousands of languages of human speech. If

> anyone knows of a language that has different simple verb forms for the

> present general and continuative, I'd be fascinated to learn of them (and to

> see if Tolkien might have been familiar with them). I rather suspect though

> that Tolkien felt he was creating something 'new' with the present aorist

> form.



As noted above, much of the notion of aspect in linguistics grew out of the

study of the Slavic languages, in which it rather than tense is the primary

notion associated with verbs.  I'm sure that Tolkien was familiar with the

notion of aspect, since it was the New Idea on the Block (TM) in linguistics in

the 20's and 30's; I believe he even studied some Russian at one point, but I

am ready to be corrected in that belief.



								 Rich Alderson

-------

>If anyone knows of a

language that has

> different simple verb forms for the present general

and continuative,



Not exactly the distincion between "aorist" and "continuative", but in general

the distinction between "perfect" and "imperfect" action is inherent to Czech,

and I think to most of the slavonic languages. There are "perfect" and

"imperfect" verbs in Czech; the "perfect" ones expressing by their present forms

FUTURE tense (finished) However, In Czech there are many ways how to express

many different aspect - e.g. "popojít" (the basic verb "jít" "to go") means "to

go a little farther and stop", so that the simple "imperfect" verb may be

treated as "aorist". Czech however does not have means to express "continuative"

- it is circumsribed by adverbs.



Lukas

In a message dated 8/1/00 8:06:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

profesorr@... writes:



<< "Aorist" is a name of a tense of a verb. The word itself means "unlimited"

or

  "undetermined" or such (greek "alfa privativum" + "horos"="limit") and in

Greek

  it means a past tense without any further qualifications - for Greek has got

an

  imperfect, too, which signifies an past action that was beeing done for some

  time, or the finish of what is not expressed. There is a slight similarity

  between German "Praeteritum" and greek "aorist", or between latin "perfectum"

  and greek "aorist", but latin perfect means always that the action is

finished -

  the greek aorist not always so, though, thanks to the contrast with the

  imperfect, quite often it is so used. But the aorist itself bears no other

  signification, than the past time - that's why it is called "a-horistos" -

  "undetermined".



  The meaning of the greek word "aoristos" rather than its aplication to a

greek

  past tense was presumably the reason why the Quenya aorist was so called.

For it

  is not a PAST tense in Quenya, but a PRESENT or something like "gnomic

  present" - a tense that does not really express ANY time (therefore

"aoristos"),

  as I understand it, and is mostly used in such cases as general statements,

  eternal truths etc . E.g. "Murder is evil" - you do not mean that NOW in the

  present murder is evil, but simly that it is so regardless to any time. (But

in

  Namaarie: Laurie LANTAR lassi - the form "lantar" is an aorist (present

would be

  ?lantear?), although the poet is certainly describing a PRESENT situation -

it

  seems that the aorist is so "aoristos" that it can express almost everything.

  What's the experts' opinion?) In English the distinction between Quenya

aorist

  and present (called sometimes "continuative") at least roughly corresponds,

as

  has been suggested, to the distinction between present simple and present

  continuous tense (in E.: "Like gold fal the leaves...", not "are falling").



  Lukas >>



     Are you positive of the use of the greek aorist??? I speak moderne greek

fairly well, and olde attic fairly, but just to make sure, I questioned my

father (a native greek speaker, who was obligated to, and enjoyed, learning

olde greek as well). He gave me a different use for the aorist than you have

suggested. (If you are right, I apologize sincerely for any misunderstanding

on my part that might have lead me to this conclusion, and/or for my father's

temporary insanity). He told me (and oddly enough, used an example with

'leaves', as in the Namaarie) that the aorist was like denoting actions that

are always ocurring, always true. He said the aorist would be used in a

sentance like 'leaves blow in the wind'. Could I get the oppinion of a few

others to set me, and any others who might be confused straight, please? NDK

I thank all of you very much, for the time, effort, and patience for such a

young, foolish, and inquisitive person ( thats me :-) ).



So in fact, Murder IS evil, at all times, which is an aorist statement,

meaning it is true ALL times, not any particular time :-)  I think I have

this ( but I am prepared to be wrong yet again, lol ).



But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or

whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears after

the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be pronounced

_h_.



I have two new questions now ( goody goody, lol ).  1) How would you take a

simple root and make it into a viable word?  Such as NUT...

One particular is the Noldorin word _lhu^th_ ( meaning spell, charm, etc )

from the root LUK.  Where does the K become TH?

And 2) how about probunciation and enunciation?  Are there any particular

rules concerning these?



Thanks again!

Namárië,

Eruanno

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--- "Ice Pick" <icepick3000@...>

> wrote:

>But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or

>whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears after

>the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be pronounced

>_h_.

>



Well '3' is not used in the transscription of either Quenya or Sindarin (only PQ

"Primitive Quenderin").  In the essay "Quendi and Eldar" Tolkien used 'H'

instead when refering to roots also known from the Etymologies, so it's use may

even have been scrapped.  It is used to represent an Arabic character, I

believe, bu others will have to recall which one.



>I have two new questions now ( goody goody, lol ).  1) How would you take a

>simple root and make it into a viable word?  Such as NUT...

>One particular is the Noldorin word _lhu^th_ ( meaning spell, charm, etc )

>from the root LUK.  Where does the K become TH?



This question is both symple and complicated.  The short answer is: You add an

ending.  There are a great many with various uses.  -ja(-ya) for instace form

mostly adjectives.  The resulting word however is in PQ or CE, "Common Eldarin"

form not Sindarin or Quenya to get an S or Q word one has to follow all the

sound changes that those languages underwent from there roots.  This process can

be fairly straight forward in Quenya but is, at least for me, almost always

tortuous in Sindarin.  See Helge Fauskanger's sites

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/primelv.htm

http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/affix~1.htm

for some information and examples or read "Quendi and Eldar" by Tolkien which is

found in HoME XI, The War of the Jewels.  It contains the derivation of Quendi,

Eldar, and related words and cognates from roots, and is, AFAIK, our best

authentic text on the subject.





>And 2) how about probunciation and enunciation?  Are there any particular

>rules concerning these?

>



There are definately rules.  See the pronounciation guide in LotR or the

Silmarillion.  For specific information on Quenya there is a website at

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/misc/local/TolkLang/pronguide.html  I hope that some of

this is a help.



Namarie,

Cirk R. Bejnar

Eluchil



_____________________________________________________________

Meta Search the web http://Meta.Frodo.Com

>But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or

>whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears after

>the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be

>pronounced

>_h_.

>

ChT thought/thinks it's [G], ie "spirant g", the sound heard in Orkish

_ghâsh_, spanish _fuego_. In QaE, the root *3O from Etym appears as *HO, so

it seems JRRT changed PQ *3 to *H, unless it's simply a purely orthographic

change. In Etym, inital *3- is seen to yield _g-_ in Ilkorin, which perhaps

is a likelier fate for [G] than for [h], tho the later is also possible I

guess.



>I have two new questions now ( goody goody, lol ).  1) How would you take a

>simple root and make it into a viable word?  Such as NUT...



*NUT means "tie" IIRC? Well, it depends on what kind of word you want to

form. A verbal stem like *KAR "make, do" can be used directly as a verbal

root in Q and S, you simply have to inflect for the desired tense and

number/person. So we have Q _car-_, 1st sg aorist _carin_ "I make", 2nd

continuative _cáralye_ "you are making" etc, and S _car-_, 1st sg present

_cerin_ "I make" etc.



In other cases, you'll have to add some kind of ending. Eg *HEK "leaving

aside, not including (adv)" plus primitive  verbal ending _-tâ_ yields PQ

_hektâ_ "reject", from which the Q and S forms can be derived (_hehta-_ and

_eitha-_). For more info, check Mr Fauskanger's article on PQ on the

Ardalambion.



>One particular is the Noldorin word _lhu^th_ ( meaning spell, charm, etc )

>from the root LUK.  Where does the K become TH?



Never! ;-)

I'm not entirely sure of the derivation of Noldorin _lhûth_ (which'd

correspond to S _lûth_), but it must be something like this

*_luk-tê_>*_lukthe_>*_lukth_>_lûth_, whith an ending before which the *K was

lost.



                                      Andreas

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On Sat, 5 Aug 2000, Andreas Johansson wrote:



>

> >But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or

> >whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears after

> >the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be

> >pronounced

> >_h_.

> >

> ChT thought/thinks it's [G], ie "spirant g", the sound heard in Orkish

> _ghâsh_, spanish _fuego_.



It is almost certainly a poor typographic representation of a yogh

character.  See http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso10646/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html

for the full story of yogh, which JRRT surely meant to represent

the voiced velar fricative (as in Spanish).



--

John Cowan                                   cowan@...

C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant

le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,

de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"

In a message dated 8/5/00 12:39:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

eluchil@... writes:



<< Well '3' is not used in the transscription of either Quenya or Sindarin

(only PQ "Primitive Quenderin").  In the essay "Quendi and Eldar" Tolkien

used 'H' instead when refering to roots also known from the Etymologies, so

it's use may even have been scrapped.  It is used to represent an Arabic

character, I believe, bu others will have to recall which one. >>



In translitteration of ancient Ægyptian, it is used to represent the Arabic

letter Aain (3ain), which holds the phonetic valour of the unvoiced Arabic 'gh

ain', near to the gamma of modern Greek. It is a sound made like the gamma

(in the back of the throat), but without the rasping, gargling

characteristics... if anyone else can explain better, be my guest (I can make

the sound, I can't describe it!) Whether or not it Tolkien used the 3 in this

way for translitterations of his tongues is beyond me.



PS: This DOES raise an interesting question, though... it has been said that

we know nothing of Tolkien's having been familliar with Arabic (<<since we

know he knew some Hebrew and so far as I know have no evidence that he knew

Arabic>>), but in using this sign, it shows that he might have been familliar

with some of the charcteristics of the language, if not only the alphabet. Or

perhaps he may have been intrigued by ancient Ægyptian, seeing as the symbol

is used in translitteration of that tongue. Any thoughts or other evidence

pro/con within Tolkien's languages or works?... Just curious......



Sincerely,

NDK

On Sat, 5 Aug 2000 Myrtheos@... wrote:



> In a message dated 8/5/00 12:39:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> eluchil@... writes:

>

> << Well '3' is not used in the transscription of either Quenya or Sindarin

> [...] It is used to represent an Arabic

> character, I believe, bu others will have to recall which one. >>

>

> In translitteration of ancient Ægyptian, it is used to represent the Arabic

> letter Aain (3ain), which holds the phonetic valour of the unvoiced Arabic 'gh

> ain', near to the gamma of modern Greek. It is a sound made like the gamma

> (in the back of the throat), but without the rasping, gargling

> characteristics...



Not quite so. The "3" (with a flat top) that an Anglo-Saxon scholar would

be likely to encounter is really a G in the form of the Roman alphabet

used for writing Old English (and Irish too until recently). In Old

English that "G" is usually a spirant ("gh"). JRRT would have been very

familiar with this.



The symbol that looks like a "3" in Egyptian transliteration actually

consists of two large curly apostrophes, one on top of the other. It

contrasts with a symbol that looks like dotless small "i" with a large

curly apostrophe on the top. These symbols were devised when it was

believed that "3" corresponded to the Semitic glottal stop and the

apostrophe-"i" corresponded to Semitic yod. Nowadays the "3" is understood

to be originally a uvular "R" sound, later dropped, leaving a glottal

stop. JRRT was probably not very familiar with this.



+------------------------------------------------------------------+

+ Jerome S. (Jeannette E. H.-va verno) Colburn                     +

+ jscolbur@...                                          +

+ Quettanyar lintanootinyallo nai ranuvar Quenyandilive hendennar! +

+------------------------------------------------------------------+

Thank you very much for your help!

I appreciate it :-)



Namárië,

Eruanno

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Having returned home, I would like to add some remarks on the "aorist topic"...



>One of the reasons for calling the Quenya tense in question the _aorist_ is

>that in Greek, _gnomic_ statements like the above are stated in the _aorist_

>tense, that is, as if in English we said

>

> Murder was evil

> Leaves fell down

>

>to mean the same thing as Lukas' examples.







This is true, but it is but one half of truth (as I realized after checking in

the grammar-book). In fact, in Greek gnomic statements were expressed by BOTH

aorist AND present - but: PRESENT was used to express an IMPERFECT or DURATIVE

(which is Mr. Alderson's surely right term, my terms are just translations from

Czech) aspect and AORIST to express an PERFECTIVE or PUNCTUAL aspect

("perfective", for the sense is not that of Greek perfect that means both

finished action and the resulting state ("heureeka" "I have found"), but rather

that of Latin perfect,

meaning simply a finished action (or action as finished - see below).



I shall try to show this on examples taken from my Greek grammar (I won't dare

to try to make up my own ones).



As a paradigm of the gnomic PRESENT is given the sentence

"Charis charin tiktei"

"Kindness breeds kindness".



As a paradigm of the gnomic AORIST we have e.g. Homer's

"Katthan' homoos ho t' aergos aneer ho te polla eorgoos"

"Dies (or: Die shall) the deedles man, and he who has done many things, too"

(excuse my poor English)



I think that my example "Murder is evil" would certainly be expressed by simple

present (something like "To katakainein poneeron estin"???) and that my second

example (not intended as an example, but as as a odd usage...) would not be

treated as "gnomic" at all.



Therefore, it seems to me that Jerry Caveney, though he shows a great insight

and his Greek is surely much better than mine, is not wholly right in what he

says about the "aorist aspect". But the matter is a bit too complicated, and I

am not sure if I am able to express myself in an undestandable way.



Firstly: I think Jerry is right in a sense in saying that "aorist" is originally

an aspect,

not a tense. But I think we can define a tense (at least a greek tense) as

consisting of two general meaning-components: a time determination and an aspect

determination. We can say, then, that Greek aorist consists of the "aorist (or

punctual) aspect" and of the "past time", and that in certain context (gnomic

statements) the second aspect is is omited (so that the tense is then treated as

a main=present one). Similarly, Greek perfect consists of "present time" and

"perfect aspect", Greek pluperfect of "past time" and "perfect aspect", Greek

imperfect of "past time" and "imperfect (or durative) aspect" and so on.



Secondly: It is hard to express, but I think that the aspect distinction of

Greek gnomic aorist and gnomic present is the same as that of Greek normal

aorist and imperfect and the same as that of Czech perfect aspect and imperfect

aspect, BUT NOT THE SAME as that of English simple and continuous tenses! Out of

my own experience I know that many Czech English speakers tend to IDENTIFY the

Czech distinction durative-punctual with the English distinction

continuous-simple, producing thus awfull Czenglish statements like "Sun is

arising

every morning" or "She was living there for several years". In Czech we would

use a DURATIVE aspect here, for there is either a repeated action, or an

action of that is accented its long duration rather than that it is finished now

(by the durative aspect we look at the action "at its middle", so that the ends

are uncertain, by the punctual aspect we see the action "as a whole", its

lasting is supressed), but that does not mean that in English we would use the

continuous tense.



Thus there are TWO couples of aspects:



Continuous - meaning that the action is being accomplished in a given TIME POINT

         x

Simple        - meaning that the action simply is acomplished, is acomplished in

a wider time period etc.



X



Durative (imperfect) - treating the action as LASTING - i.e. for a longer time

period or

withoud respect to its start and finish.

x

Punctual (perfective, aorist) - treating the action simply as a whole or picking

out its beginning or its end, which is then treated as the described "whole"

action (eerksa "started to rule" or "ceased to rule" or "ruled" (when telling a

story etc.)).



I do not think that Greek aorist originally expressed the aspect here described

as "simple", which is, as I take it, Jerry's opinion. The reason is that Greek

DOES NOT KNOW the distinction "simple-continuous", like English does not know

the distinction punctual-durative (can this be the reason why Jerry, like

some Czech speakers in the case of Czech and English, identifies them in the

case of English and Greek?). Why then does Greek posses the gnomic aorist as a

present tense? The reason is not in order to distinguish a "continuous" aspect

(normal present) and a "simple=aorist aspect" (gnomic aorist) but to distinguish

a "punctual" (gnomic aorist) and a "durative" (gnomic present) aspect of the

"present simple" used as "gnomic". The means to distinguish "simple" and

"continuous" Greek does not posses.

Originally, Greek possessed just ONE past tense (I am leaving aside the special

case of perfect and pluperfect in Greek). This was only later distinguished into

imperfect and aorist, in order to obtain means how to distinguish punctual and

durative aspect. (Personally I think that there was a special form needed to

express the DURATIVE aspect, so that the aorist remained "ho aoristos" - "the

unqualified" and only by contrast started to express the "punctual aspect".

There are cases where in Greek is aorist, but in Czech there is past DURATIVE

verb, from which I assume that the "punctual" meaning of Greek aorist is not so

strict as in Czech or as the durative meaning of Greek imperfect is.) However,

Greek did not form any special "present punctual", because (I think) it would

have no normal "continuous" use (you cannot treat an action as a whole when you

think of it as just happening - that

is why present forms of Czech perfect verbs mean in fact action that will (as a

whole) happen in the future = future punctual). The only possible use of this

"present punctual" would be in timeless gnomic statements, where the meaning

is not that the action is just being performed. And therefore Greek did not form

a special tense for this rare case, but borrowed the aorist, just "forgetting"

for this case its "past-time" meaning and stressing on its "punctual-aspect"

meaning.

This is even more obvious in the case of OTHER MOODS, where the "time part" of

the meaning of the form of the verb is LOST and only the "aspect part" is left.

There the AORIST stem means simply PUNCTUAL aspect, and the PRESENT stem (from

which the imperfect is formed) means DURATIVE aspect (and the PERFECT stem the

PERFECT aspect). We can maybe treat the "gnomic" as an extra mood, that does not

any more express any time - like optative and conjuctive (or should it be

"subjunctive" in English?) - and we will no more ask why a past tense does not

express the past time.





>    Are you positive of the use of the greek aorist??? I speak moderne greek

>fairly well, and olde attic fairly, but just to make sure, I questioned my

>father (a native greek speaker, who was obligated to, and enjoyed, learning

>olde greek as well). He gave me a different use for the aorist than you have

>suggested. (If you are right, I apologize sincerely for any misunderstanding

>on my part that might have lead me to this conclusion, and/or for my father's

>temporary insanity). He told me (and oddly enough, used an example with

>'leaves', as in the Namaarie) that the aorist was like denoting actions that

>are always ocurring, always true. He said the aorist would be used in a

>sentance like 'leaves blow in the wind'. Could I get the oppinion of a few

>others to set me, and any others who might be confused straight, please? NDK



As I understand it, there are two main functions of old-Greek aorist: 1) Past

tense with (not always clear) "punctual aspect" 2) tense with clear "punctual

aspect" and without time determination = gnomic aorist. It seems very odd to me

that the sentence "leaves blow in the wind" would be expressed by aorist:

Firstly, it is not meant as a general truth, secondly, even if it were, it would

be still expressed by gnomic present, because the action described is clearly

meant as during for some time... I am puzzled...





Well, it is long enough already, I will leave the discussion of the implication

of this for Tolkien's use of "aorist" to others...



Lukas

In a message dated 8/6/00 11:00:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

profesorr@... writes:



<< As I understand it, there are two main functions of old-Greek aorist: 1)

Past

  tense with (not always clear) "punctual aspect" 2) tense with clear "punctual

  aspect" and without time determination = gnomic aorist. It seems very odd to

me

  that the sentence "leaves blow in the wind" would be expressed by aorist:

  Firstly, it is not meant as a general truth, secondly, even if it were, it

would

  be still expressed by gnomic present, because the action described is clearly

  meant as during for some time... I am puzzled... >>



Well, Father is an olde man, and he really was at a loss for words when I

asked him to use an example of the aorist (he hasn't really been able to

speak Greek very much since he came here [about, what, 30 years ago???]) He's

the kind of person who's apt to fabricate a yarn to make himself seem a bit

smarter, or a bit wiser  (is that a Greek thing?). I thank you SO much

(believe me, I actually lost sleep over this!) for your help!!!



Anyway, I have but one last question: The Quenya aorist is used in such

sentances that mean to imply no specific time, or sentances in which the verb

expresses an action that is always true. But, interpreting it as the 'simple

tense' of english (is that what we call it?), and translating the Quenya

present as the definite english present (the ' ___ is ____-ing' construction)

seems a bit..... well, silly of us. (By this, I mean only to say that Tolkien

,being at the mental level that he was and knowing such a great amount on the

subject of grammar, would probably not have meant for the aorist to be a

direct translation of the english 'simple' tense, if only because very few

verb tenses in other languages have a single, perfectly corresponding verb

construct [tense] in english. For example, in Romance languages, the present

tense does not only imply our present tense, but our 'simple tense', and a

sort of confirming verb tense 'I DO ___'. In Latin, the perfect can either be

translated as the english 'simple past' [bear with me on English grammatical

terms], or  the construct 'I have ___-ed', etc...) Basically, what I ask is

that we clarify what are and are not the specific uses of the aorist in

Quenya (or a comment stating, shut up, you bloody fool, it DOES translate

directly as the english 'simple tense' [you'll no doubt use the correct

term]). For starters, if you wish to express something like: 'I give my

thanks unto you', would you put the verb 'give' in the aorist (since it does

not denote a 'timeless truth'), or in the present?

I am sincerely sorry for all of this commotion of one little tense-... er,

rather aspect (thanks for that one, by the way! Always learning!!!)



Nicholas D. Kontovas

In a message dated 8/7/00 6:45:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

jscolbur@... writes:



<< Not quite so. The "3" (with a flat top) that an Anglo-Saxon scholar would

  be likely to encounter is really a G in the form of the Roman alphabet

  used for writing Old English (and Irish too until recently). In Old

  English that "G" is usually a spirant ("gh"). JRRT would have been very

  familiar with this. >>



     I had no idea of its use in that sense. It IS, however used in the

translitteration of ancient Ægyptian (written online as a 3, and on paper, a

3 or [earlier form] double aphostrophe, one above the other). I DID, however

(to clear something up) mal-explain the symbol, though: While a few used the

symbol 3 as the Ægyptian Aain, it was first and foremost used to represent

the GLOTTAL STOP,  or hamza in Arabic, the single aphostrophe being used for

the sound I earlier described... what remains to be said is what specific

sound Tolkien wished to give the 3 symbol?

>Not quite so. The "3" (with a flat top) that an Anglo-Saxon scholar would

>be likely to encounter is really a G in the form of the Roman alphabet

>used for writing Old English (and Irish too until recently). In Old

>English that "G" is usually a spirant ("gh"). JRRT would have been very

>familiar with this.

>

There's also another "3" sign he might very well been familiar with. until

about the mid-1900s, this signs, looking exactly like the "3"s of Etym, was

the normal form in German for "z" (ie /ts/). These "long z" are also found

in older scandinavic writings. I don't know whether they've been used in

English or other languages, but they turn up in IPA as the sign for [Z].



                                             Andreas

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>On Sat, 5 Aug 2000, Andreas Johansson wrote:

>

> >

> > >But my other question was this: how do you pronounce _3_ in Q or S or

> > >whatever else?  EX: _3ar_ is a root in The Lost Road, and it appears

>after

> > >the _g_ section, so in conclusion, I could guess that it would be

> > >pronounced

> > >_h_.

> > >

> > ChT thought/thinks it's [G], ie "spirant g", the sound heard in Orkish

> > _ghâsh_, spanish _fuego_.

>

>It is almost certainly a poor typographic representation of a yogh

>character.  See http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso10646/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html

>for the full story of yogh, which JRRT surely meant to represent

>the voiced velar fricative (as in Spanish).

>



What about the "German z" then? I've thought that this was the source of IPA

"ezh", and it looks (to me, I'm not deep into alphabeths and characters)

like a "Fraktur" version of ezh.



                                             Andreas



PS if you don't know what letter I'm talking about, then the easiest way to

see it would likely be to find a book on German 1900-1946 History and look

for either a photo on placates featuring text containing z's or a facsimile

reproduction of contemporary German text.

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>Anyway, I have but one last question: The Quenya aorist is used in such

>sentances that mean to imply no specific time, or sentances in which the verb

>expresses an action that is always true. But, interpreting it as the 'simple

>tense' of english (is that what we call it?), and translating the Quenya

>present as the definite english present (the ' ___ is ____-ing' construction)

>seems a bit..... well, silly of us.



On my part, I am inclined to agree with you, but I am no expert. To me it seems

that Quenya "aorist" is simply the verbal stem without any mark of time, aspect

etc., and therefore it could be used always, when the speaker doesn't want or

need to mark theese things. That would explain why the aorist is so much used

where one would expect the present (continuative). Maybe it is a general feature

of Quenya that it does not mark what needn't be marked (unlike most languages I

know). So we have pronominal verb endings, but they are dropped if the subject

is expressed otherwise, we have in Cirion's oath the usage "mi nuumen" where one

who knows Latin, Greek, etc. should grammatically expect the locative case

ending ("mi nuumesse"?), but it is again dropped as not necessary while "mi" is

preponed. Similarly, maybe aorist could be used in such cases, when it is

otherwise (context etc.) clear what time and aspect and I-don't-know-what is

meant..? What do the others think about it?



>For starters, if you wish to express something like: 'I give my

>thanks unto you', would you put the verb 'give' in the aorist (since it does

>not denote a 'timeless truth'), or in the present?



I think the aorist would suffice - but I may perfectly be wrong!



>I am sincerely sorry for all of this commotion of one little tense-... er,

>rather aspect (thanks for that one, by the way! Always learning!!!)



I think you absolutely needn't excuse - at least for me it was a most

interesting discussion. I too am always learning...



Lukas