Verb – μι plural

This was our example of the present being used for sequential events. Each of these events takes place one right after the other. This shows that we must define imperfective aspect in such a way that it allows for the endpoint of an event to be reached in certain cases. We must also define the present in such a way that it allows for these sorts of “historical” uses where a past event is being referred to (see Semantics C for more discussion on both issues).

What makes the Greek present less interesting is that many present tense forms across languages allow for similar “historical” uses. English is one such language, where the simple present is often used to refer to past events. For example, it is completely natural to say something like Then, the guy comes out of nowhere and stomps on my foot in a story in English where both comes and stomps are in the present, though they refer to past events. There are many explanations for this, but the basic semantic one is that the present tense does not mean that the reference time occurs at the moment of speaking, even though it is often interpreted this way. The present really means that the reference time overlaps with another salient time, which, though this often is the moment of speaking, need not be. This “salient time,” for example, can be a time in a story being told about the past. Since the present would then be overlapping with a past time, it is interpreted as referring to a time that occurs before the speaker’s real time of speaking. This basic idea allows us to account for all kinds of uses of the present that do not fit the prototypical use of the time being discussed overlapping with the time of speaking (see Semantics C for further details).