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LESSON 2 - Second Part / First Part
ACHILLES' GRIEF - From Homer's Iliad

by George Valsamis

Imperfect refers to an action that was happening sometime. It is called imperfect, because it waits to be interrupted or was interrupted by another action. However, in Greek it is not called imperfect, it is called Παρατατικός = Extending/Extentive. Παρατατικὸς is the natural continuance of the Ἐνεστώς, an instant that is repeated so that it is extended, until something else happens that stops this prolongation. The word "Παρατατικός" is closer to the English "Present", than to "Imperfect". It refers to a duration, and this duration is connected with some present - now or sometime present.

In ἐνεστώς (present) we can not know how long an action is going to last. On the contrary, παρατατικός refers to duration properly, because we know that something was happening in a complete (this doesn't mean calculated) duration. In ἐνεστώς, perfect is the instant, in παρατατικός, perfect is duration - in both cases we can not speak of imperfectness, therefore translating "παρατατικὸς" with "imperfect" is wrong. We don't know if the action was complete, but we do know that time was complete, and when we describe a tense we must describe the time and not the action. Think of this. In Greek a tense is called χρόνος = time! But even in English tense means a stretch and a distance, it also refers to time (by spacial terms) and not to the action itself.

 

Aorist, a transliteration of the Greek ἀόριστος, (=undefined) refers to an instant past. Aorist is the projection of a distinct instance of ἐνεστώς (present) into the past. Remove duration from παρατατικός, and you have the aorist. What I now do, exactly this tomorrow will be what I yesterday did - I crossed the street, for example. An action of the present, that is certain and obvious, since the subject is inside that action, when it moves to the past it looses its certainty, it becomes vague, something that happened, that is sure, but we are not there any more. Aorist is the primary tense of memory, which, as pure memory, is not related to, and thus defined by, the present and actual. (Remember what Plato says in Theaetetus about memory).

Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/lesson2b.asp?pg=5