ABSTRACT
The two tenses correspond to the two meanings of E. then, (I) next, after that, as in " then he went to France" (Dan. dmrpa), and (2) 'at that time' as in "then he lived in France" (Dan. dengang). The aorist carries the narrative on, it tells us what happened next, while the imperfect lingers over the conditions as they were at that time and expatiates on them with more or less of prolixity. One tense gives movement, the other a pause. One Latin grammarian, whom I have seen quoted I forget where, expresses this tersely: Perfecto procedit, Imperfecto insistit oratio. KrUger similarly says that the aorist grips (zusammenfasst) and concentrates, the imperfect discloses (entfaltet). Sarauw expands this (KZ 3S. 151), saying that in the former " abstraction is made from what is inessential, from the circumstances under which the action took place and from interruptions that may have occurred, and what was really a whole series of actions is condensed into one action, the duration of which is not, however, abbreviated." It is noteworthy that, as Sarauw emphasizes, an aorist was formed from the imperfective as well as from the perfective verbs in Old Slavic. In the same way French uses its aorist (passe historique) with any verb, no matter what its meaning is. We may perhaps be allowed with some exaggeration to say in the biblical phrase that the imperfect is used by him to whom one day is as a thousand years, and the aorist by him to whom a thousand years are as one day. At any rate we see that terms like the G. "aktionsart" are very wide of the mark : the distinction has no reference to the action itself, and we get much nearer the truth of the matter if we say that it is a difference in the speed of the narrative; if the speaker wants in his presentation of the facts to hurry on towards the present moment, he will choose the aorist; if, on the other hand, he lingers and takes a look round, he will use the imperfect. This tense-distinction is really, therefore, a tempo-distinction: the imperfect is lento and the aorist allegro, or perhaps we should say ritardando and accelerando respectively.
