Aorist

This article is about the aorists of various languages. For the Greek aorist, see Aorist (Ancient Greek).

Aorist (/ˈeɪərɪst/ AY-ər-ist; abbreviated AOR) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, 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, the South Slavic languages, Georgian, Pontic Greek, and Pashto, also have forms referred to as aorist.

The word comes from Ancient Greek ἀόριστος (aóristos 'indefinite'),[1][2] as the aorist 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; instead it described an action "pure and simple".[3]

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.[4]

  1. ^ ἀόριστος. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project
  2. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1992). A Greek - English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 173 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ Beetham, Frank (2007). Learning Greek with Plato. Bristol Phoenix Press. p. 362. ISBN 978-1-904675-56-3. This does not mean, however, that the aorist was aspectually neutral, see Napoli, Maria (2006). Aspect and Actionality in Homeric Greek. Milano: FrancoAngeli. p. 67. ISBN 88-464-7836-3.
  4. ^ Lewis, Geoffrey (2000). Turkish Grammar (2nd ed.). Oxford. ISBN 0-19-870036-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)