The gnomic (

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

), also called neutral, generic, or universal aspect, mood, or tense, is a grammatical feature (which may refer to aspect, mood, or tense) that expresses general truths or

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...

Uses and occurrence

Used to describe an aspect, the gnomic is considered neutral by not limiting the flow of time to any particular conception (for example, the conceptions of time as

continuous Continuity or continuous may refer to: Mathematics * Continuity (mathematics), the opposing concept to discreteness; common examples include ** Continuous probability distribution or random variable in probability and statistics ** Continuous g ...

, habitual,

perfective The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...

, etc.). Used to describe a mood, the gnomic is considered neutral by not limiting the expression of words to the speaker's attitude toward them (e.g. as indicative, subjunctive, potential, etc.). Used to describe a tense, the gnomic is considered neutral by not limiting action, in particular, to the past, present, or future. Examples of the gnomic include such generic statements as: "birds fly"; "sugar is sweet"; and "a mother can always tell". If, as an aspect, it does take temporality into consideration, it may be called the empiric perfect aspect. Generally, though, it is one example of

imperfective aspect The imperfective ( abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...

, which does not view an event as a single entity viewed only as a whole, but instead specifies something about its internal temporal structure. A grammatical gnomic aspect occurs in literary Swahili, where the ''-a-'' form of the verb is gnomic (sometimes called "indefinite tense") and the ''-na-'' form of the verb is episodic (sometimes called 'definite tense' or just 'present').

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

and

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

do not have a gnomic inflection in their verbs like Swahili, but they do have

lexical aspect In linguistics, the lexical aspect or Aktionsart (, plural ''Aktionsarten'' ) of a verb is part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. For example, the English verbs ''arrive'' and ''run'' differ in their lexical aspect ...

in their be verbs ''ser'' (in Catalan, ''ser'' or ''ésser'') (gnomic) and ''estar'' (episodic). For instance, ''estar enfermo'' (Spanish) ''estar doente'' (Portuguese) or ''estar malalt'' (Catalan) means to be sick (episodic), whereas ''ser enfermo'' (Spanish), ''ser doente'' (Portuguese) or ''ésser malalt'' (Catalan) means to be sickly (gnomic). However, most languages use other forms of the verb to express general truths. For instance, English and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

use the standard present tense, as in the examples given above. In

Classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

, Tongan, and

Dakota Dakota may refer to: * Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux ** Dakota language, their language Dakota may also refer to: Places United States * Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Dakota, Illinois, a town * Dakota, Minnesota, ...

, the

future tense In grammar, a future tense ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...

is used.

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

uses the

perfective aspect The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the ...

. In

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, an imperfective clause with the ''wa'' (topic) particle is used for generic statements such as ''taiyou-wa higashi-kara nobo-ru'' un-TOP east-from rise-IPFV"the sun rises in the east", whereas the ''ga'' (subject) particle would force an episodic reading.

English

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

has no means of morphologically distinguishing a gnomic aspect; however, a generic reference is generally understood to convey an equivalent meaning. Use of the

definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...

"the" or a demonstrative determiner usually implies specific individuals, as in "the car he owns is fast", "the cars he owns are fast", or "those rabbits are fast", whereas omitting the definite article or other determiner in the plural creates a generic reference: "rabbits are fast" describes rabbits in general. However, the definite article may also be used in the singular for classes of nouns, as in "The giraffe is the tallest land mammal living today", which does not refer to any specific giraffe, but to giraffes in general. English generally uses the

simple present The simple present, present simple or present indefinite is one of the verb forms associated with the present tense in modern English. It is commonly referred to as a tense, although it also encodes certain information about aspect in addition ...

tense as the equivalent of a gnomic aspect, as in "rabbits are fast" and "water boils at 212 °F". The simple present is used with specific references for the equivalent of a

habitual aspect In linguistics, the aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in a given action, event, or state. As its name suggests, the habitual aspect ( abbreviated ), not to be confused with iterative aspe ...

, as in "I run every day"; likewise, the auxiliary "will" is used with specific references for the habitual aspect, as in "he will make that mistake all the time, won't he?". Thus, in English the gnomic aspect takes the same form as the habitual aspect. The English "reportive present" tense as seen in newspaper headlines like "Technical Innovations Increase Efficiency, Lower Costs" can be viewed as gnomic.

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

, a general truth may be expressed in the present

imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...

future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that current ...

, or

aorist Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by th ...

, which are then called the ''gnomic present'', the ''gnomic future'', and the ''gnomic aorist''. There is also a ''gnomic perfect''.Smyth, paragraph 1948: :Empiric Perfect. – The perfect may set forth a general truth expressly based on a fact of experience: ἡ ἀταξίᾱ πολλοὺς ἤδη ἀπολώλεκεν ''lack of discipline ere now has been the ruin of many'' X. A. 3. 1. 38. They are not distinct tenses but simply uses of the tense. A gnomic future, the rarest of the three usages, similarly states that certain events often occur and does not imply that an event is going to occur. A gnomic aorist (the most common of the three usages) likewise expresses the tendency for certain events to occur under given circumstances and is used to express general maxims. The gnomic aorist is thought to derive (like the English example) from the summation of a common story (such as the

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

of a

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular m ...

). Perhaps in imitation of Greek conventions,

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

sometimes uses a gnomic perfect: ''amor omnia vicit''.

Notes

References

* Smyth, Herbert Weir, ''Greek Grammar'', 1920. (rev. ed. by Gordon Messing, 1956), section 1931.
full text in the 1916 edition

Uses and occurrence

English

Ancient Greek

Notes

References

Further reading