CHAPTER I THE ASPECTUAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PRESENT AND AORIST STEMS ‘The difference between the present and aorist sterns has been explained by many scholars in very different ways. There is general agreement now, fone might say, on what aspect actually is: aspect denotes the speaker's point of view of the action. But no agreement has been reached yet as to the structure of the aspect system of the Greek verb. ‘The present stem, it seems, does not present the greatest difficulties. Some scholars regard it as durative””, others as imperfective” and infee- tive, but in spite of these differences in terminology they all arrive at the same conclusion, viz. that the present stem denotes duration, With regard to the function and the meaning of the aorist stem, however, the unanimity is not so great. The different theories on this matter can be divided roughly into three groups? In the first place there is the punctual aorist. This punctuality may be realized in a momentary action (Bia, “to take a step”), in the starting- point (Saxpica, “to burst into tears": ingressive or inceptive aorist), oF in the terminating-point of an action (aeioa!, “to convince”: effective, terminative, or perfective aorist). With this punctual aorist is connected an aorist that does not denote punctuality, e.g,, (Bacevse rouxora én, ‘he’ was ruling for thirty years”: complexive, constantive, factive, J, M, Stahl, Kritischsistorische Syntax des griechischen Verbums (Heidelberg 1907), p. 74; Brugmann-Thumb, p. $42; J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen uber Symax, T (Basel 1920), pp. 173 sgq.: E. Hermann, IF. 45 (1927), pp. 207 sga.; A. Melle, Apercud'une Iistoire dela langue greeque (Pati 1930), p.38; Id, Introduction @ étude comparative ides langues indo-européennes (Paris 1934), p. 250; P. Chantraine, Morphologie grecque (@aris 1947), p. 167; 1d, Gramm, p. 183; Mellet-Vendryes, Traité de granimaire com- pparée des langues classiques (Pavis 1953),. 174; V.Lejnieks, Morphosyntax ofthe Homer- {Te Greek Verb (The Hague 1964),p. 4. 2H, Jacobsoha, Gnomon 2(1926),p. 379. 8) Schwyzer-Debrunner, pp. 257 599. ‘© This summary is forthe greater part based on Ruipérez, pp. 68 sag. See also Gonda, pp. 199g. a a