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O. Spevak
ON GRAMMATICAL ASPECT IN LATIN
Существование грамматической категории глагольного вида в латинском языке является предметом давних дискуссий. В докладе предполагается сделать обзор наиболее серьезных подходов к этой проблеме и обсудить важные аргументы, которые следует принимать во внимание. В исследовании не предлагаются какие-то новые данные (которых в настоящее время и так вполне достаточно известно), но систематически рассматривается вся проблематика латинской аспектуальности.
Ключевые слова: латинская глагольная система, imperfectum, perfectum, видовые оппозиции.
The existence of grammatical aspect in Latin is a much discussed issue. I propose to review the most important approaches to this question and to discuss important arguments that have to be taken into consideration. The aim of this contribution is not to put forward new data (these are known enough) but to examine this question in a systematic way.
From a traditional point of view (Szantyr 1972: 300), it has been claimed that there are reflexes of an inherited aspectual distinction perfective - imperfective in two Latin verbal stems (imperfectum, laud-o 'I praise' - perfectum, laud-av-i 'I praised'). More recently, from Meillet's view (1897 and Meillet & Vendryes 1948: 301-3), aspectual opposition in Latin resides in pairs: simple verb (imperfective value) vs compound verb (perfective value) - as in Slavic languages -, for example, sequor 'to follow' vs adsequor 'to pursue'. These approaches have been criticized by Pinkster (1983: 296 and 2015: § 7.3, 380-1); he claims that unlike in Ancient Greek and Slavic languages, there is no grammatical category of aspect in Latin.
Although Pinkster's argumentation is convincing, it is important to bring to the discussion new elements. From the point of view of Indo-European linguistics, it has been claimed that since grammatical aspect is supposed to have existed in Indo-European, it must have been inherited by Latin as well as by Ancient Greek (Oldsjo 2001: 52-73). More specifically, it has been proposed that there is an aspectual opposition between the perfect and the imperfect tense in Latin (Haverling 2010: 437 sqq.).
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O. Spevak
Such an assumption is wrong from a methodological point of view: Latin data cannot be interpreted on the basis of a putative grammatical category in Indo-European. However, there are more important objections to this recent assumption:
- the opposition between the perfect tense and the imperfect tense is not systematic and is limited to the indicative mood only;
- it is important to recall that the opposition between "narrative tense" (Latin perfect tense) and the "descriptive tense" (Latin imperfective tense), which manifests itself as "foreground level" and "background level" is not of the aspectual nature but of temporal nature. This has been shown for the use of aorist and imperfect in Old Slavonic by Havranek (1939), Dostal (1954: 598-9) and Maslov (1985: 28).
- the Latin perfect is used for durative events and can be combined with the accusative of duration; these perfects correspond to imperfective verbs in Russian (Kravar 1980: 152; cf. Tronsky 1973):
Ibi cenavi atque ibi quievi in navi noctem perpetem (Plaut. Amph. 732-5)
'Там я ужинал и там я спал на корабле всю ночь.'
From this it can be argued that the Latin perfect tense is aspectually neutral: it can be used in a "perfective" or "imper-fective" context. In the case of action verbs, Latin scripsi 'I wrote' can cover "actions" as well as "accomplishments" in Vendler's terminology, but in Russian, actions require an imperfective verb: я писал (долго/час) and accomplishments, a perfective verb: я написал (за час).
References
Dostal, Antonin. 1954: Studie o vidovém systému v staroslovënstinë. Prague, SPN.
Haverling, Gerd. 2010: Actionality, tense, and viewpoint. In: Cuzzolin Pierluigi et Baldi Philip (éd.), New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax, vol. 2, Constituent Syntax : Adverbial Phrases, Adverbs, Mood, Tense. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 277-523. Havranek, Bohuslav. 1939 : Aspect et temps du verbe en vieux slave. In : Mélanges de linguistique offerts à Charles Bally. Genève : Georg [réimpression 1972, Genève, Slatkine]. Kravar, Miroslav. 1980: Pitanja glogolskogo vida u latinskom jeziku.
Skopje: Ziva antika. Maslov, Yuriy. 1985: An outline of contrastive aspectology. In: Maslov, Yuriy (ed.), Contrastive Studies in Verbal Aspect in Russian, French, and German. Heidelberg: J. Groos, 1-44.
On grammatical aspect in Latin
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Meillet, A., Vendryès, J. 19482 : Traité de grammaire comparée des langues classiques. Paris : H. Champion.
Meillet, Antoine. 1897: De l'expression de l'aoriste en latin. Revue de Philologie 21, 81-90.
Oldsjö, Fredrik. 2001: Tense and Aspect in Caesar's narrative. Uppsala: University press.
Pinkster, Harm. 1983: Tempus, Aspect, and Actionsart in Latin. In: Haase, Wolfgang (éd.). Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2, 29 (1). Berlin: De Gruyter, 270-320.
Pinkster, Harm. 2015: The Oxford Latin Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Szantyr, Anton. 1972: Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik. Munich: C. H. Beck.
Tronsky, I. M. 1973: Bemerkungen zum Aspekt- und Tempussystem des lateinischen Verbums. In K. Strunk (ed.). Probleme der lateinischen Grammatik. Darmstadt: WB, 354-367.
Vendler, Zeno. 1957/1967: Verbs and times. In: Vendler, Zeno. Linguistics in Philosophy, 97-121.
