UCLA

Though Greek and Sanskrit possess clearly cognate tense–aspect categories, they differ significantly with respect to the function of these categories. This dissertation investigates the usage of the Aorist and Imperfect indicative in Homeric Greek and Rigvedic Sanskrit, in order to reevaluate the functional range of both categories in each language. A qualitative and quantitative examination of the data reveals that the differences in usage between the two languages are only superficial. In Homer as in the Rigveda, the Aorist is commonly used to express perfect aspect, while the Imperfect is used to sequence events in past narration. This thesis thus further extends the findings of Hollenbaugh 2018 in proposing that the Aorist and Imperfect do not represent a perfective/imperfective system, nor can they be traced back to such a system in the proto-language, as is often assumed. Rather, they originally marked perfect aspect and a simple past tense respectively. In addition, this dissertation explores the pragmatic interactions across functional categories to explain the lack of application of certain forms in contexts with which they are semantically compatible. The differences in usage observed for the two languages are thus attributed to systematic differences in their respective verb systems overall, rather than to any particular functional innovations per se. The Vedic injunctive and Homeric augmentless forms are also considered, and an account is given of the interaction between the augment and the verbal bases with which it combines. This provides insights into why the augment and augmentless forms behave differently in the two languages in the way that they do, and suggests how each can be derived from a common source in the proto-language.