THE PERFECTIVE ~ IMPERFECTIVE AND AORIST ~ IMPERFECT DISTINCTIONS IN BULGARIAN AND MODERN GREEK

Abstract

The goal of the present comparative study is to identify manifestations of inter-language symmetry and asymmetry in terms of the perfective/imperfective and aorist/imperfect distinctions in Bulgarian and Greek. Both the aorist and the imperfect are witnessed forms, but the opposition between them is not temporal, it has aspectual features. Both languages demonstrate similarities in the semantics of the two distinctions. In Bulgarian, however, both aorist and imperfect can be formed from perfective and imperfective verbs. In Greek the aorist is formed only from perfective verbs, and the imperfect only from imperfective ones. The article raises the question of a potential genealogical link between the aorist and the perfective, on the one hand, and the imperfect and the imperfective, on the other.