AORIST, or (from a, privative, and oe/eu, limit), in grammar, a term in verbs usually and perly denoting past time indefinitely. The name might seem to imply, that it denoted indefinite time in general : Usage, however, has, for the most part, restricted the term to the tenses, expressing indefinite past time. In some particular modes of speech, the aorist may be em ployed in so extensive a sense, as to include the present and future, as well as the past. This, however, is not its common or appropriate application ; and the radical reference, even in those, is to the past.
The formation of the aorist, as a distinct tense of the verb, may be thus explained. All actions or events de noted by the verb must refer to time. Time is necessa rily either present, past, or future ; present time, from its nature, referring to an individual instant, properly admits of no division or extension ; the present tense, therefore, we find has usually no variety of forms ; past and future time are susceptible of various extensions and limitations ; but the future being but imperfectly within the knowledge, or subject to the controul of man, the necessity of limiting and defining future time in human speech, occurs so rarely, that hardly in any language has there been found occasion for particular forms of the verb to express such limitations. It is different in regard to the past. Past events may and must frequent ly be spoken of, as being completed or not completed ; occurring at a remote period, or only recently finished, and still connected with the present : or, lastly, as hav ing occurred, without any circumstance to render the period of their taking place of any importance as an ob ject of attention. Peculiar variations of the verb have been devised in the more perfect languages, to denote these modifications of past time : hence the formation of the tenses, denominated the imperfect, the preterper feet, the ;—all of which will be explained in their places : and hence the formation of the tense de nominated the aorist, to express past time, not immediate ly connected with any of those circumstances, which so frequently occur to render it necessary to signify what particular modification of the past is in view.
In all the languages of modern Europe, the aorist tense constitutes a conspicuous part of the verb. In
English, I spoke,I sung ; in French, je par/ai, je chantai ; in Spanish, yo liable, yo cantee ; in German, ich sprach, ich sang, are all truly and properly aorists, according to the real meaning of the name. In Greek, there are commonly reckoned two aorists. The Latin verb is so far defective, that it has no particular form for the aorist ; the place of which is supplied, and sometimes inac curately enough, by either the imperfect or the preter perfect.
In regard to the two tenses of the aorist in Greek, different opinions have been held. Dr Beattie considers the second aorist, as well as the second future tense, as unnecessary. Some grammarians, he says, are of opinion, that the first signifies past time in general, and the second indefinite time past ; but this he apprehends to be mere conjecture, unsupported by proof; adopting the sentiments of those who think the second has no mean ing different from the first, but is probably rather the imperfect of some obsolete theme of the verb. This opinion, which was first brought forward by Hemster buis and his disciples, has been so fully supported by Linnep, that there seems to be little doubt of its truth. Lord Monboddo has adduced, to strengthen it, the tes timony of some ancient grammarians. Dr Browne (Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy for 1789) has controverted this opinion. He allows, that both the aorists in Greek are often used without discrimination, as mere past indefinites ; but he maintains, that the first has much more frequently a definite meaning than the second. The reasoning of Dr Browne, however, though ingenious, is far from satisfactory ; and the examples he has adduced appear insufficient to bear out his hypo thesis. The just analogy of the Greek language seems fully to countenance the profoundcr views of Hemster huis and Linnep, that the second aorist is only an imper fect tense, from a cognate, though obsolete, form of the verb.
The subject of the aorist tenses is treated, or occasion ally touched upon, by Dr Beattie, Theory of Language, lord Monboddo, Origin and Progress of Language, Dr Browne, (as above quoted,) Linnep's Analogia Gr.eca, Dawe's Nliscellanea Critica ; as well as a number of writers of inferior note, whose inquiries have been di rected to universal grammar. ((/`)