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This chapter analyzes the use of tense and aspect in iterative, habitual and generic expressions in terms of the cognitive linguistic notion of construal, i.e., the cognitive ability to conceive and portray a situation in alternative ways. It will be argued that tense and aspect use in iterative, habitual and generic clauses in Ancient Greek hinges on a number of specific construal operations: the capacity to construe a series of individual events as a holistic higher-order event, the capacity to construe an event as bounded or unbounded, and the capacity to view a situation from alternative vantage points.

This chapter analyzes the use of tense and aspect in iterative, habitual and generic expressions in terms of the cognitive linguistic notion of construal, i.e., the cognitive ability to conceive and portray a situation in alternative ways. It will be argued that tense and aspect use in iterative, habitual and generic clauses in Ancient Greek hinges on a number of specific construal operations: the capacity to construe a series of individual events as a holistic higher-order event, the capacity to construe an event as bounded or unbounded, and the capacity to view a situation from alternative vantage points.

A well-known psychological effect triggered by narrative texts is the reader’s (or listener’s) experience of being mentally drawn into the storyworld, a feeling which is often referred to as immersion. The intensity of the experience of being immersed is not only dependent on various cognitive and emotional propensities of the immersed subject but also determined by particular features of the narrative text. The more a text enables the reader to construct an embodied simulation of the described situation, the more intense the immersive experience will be. Linguistic phenomena relevant to immersion are tense-aspect, modality, deixis, discourse markers, and subjective-evaluative vocabulary. Narrative techniques contributing to immersion include descriptions rich in sensorimotor information, scenic spatial and temporal organization, character focalization, narratorial covertness, and the creation of empathy and suspense. This chapter explores the wide range of linguistic and narratological features brought into play to effect an immersive experience, discussing a number of immersive (and non-immersive) passages from Homer and Thucydides.

Through the ages, listeners and readers of the Homeric epics have been impressed by their vividness (enárgeia): their capacity to encourage the audience to visualize the storyworld and to feel as if one is transported onto the scene. In this chapter, this famous Homeric quality will be approached as a form of immersion, a concept adopted from cognitive narratology referring to the ‘experience through which a fictional world acquires the presence of an autonomous, language-independent reality populated with live human beings’ (Ryan 2015: 9). Immersion is an embodied phenomenon: the text can be seen as a set of cues to construct an embodied (sensory and action) simulation of the described situation. Crucial to an embodied simulation is construal, the conceptualization of the situation in terms of a number of cognitive dimensions, such as specificity, salience, perspective, dynamicity, and focus of attention. An immersion approach allows us to analyze Homeric vividness by means of a wide range of textual cues, of a narratological character (such as narrative speed, order, focalization, narratorial visibility, and suspense) as well as of a linguistic character (such as vocabulary, tense-aspect, modality, deixis, case marking, and intonation units). Using Homer’s description of Calypso’s cave (Od. 5.59-73) as an example, I will argue that a text’s immersive power is not only dependent on the presence of salient sensory details but is brought about by a tight interplay of various textual dimensions.

Through the ages, listeners and readers of the Homeric epics have been impressed by their vividness (enárgeia): their capacity to encourage the audience to visualize the storyworld and to feel as if one is transported onto the scene. In this chapter, this famous Homeric quality will be approached as a form of immersion, a concept adopted from cognitive narratology referring to the ‘experience through which a fictional world acquires the presence of an autonomous, language-independent reality populated with live human beings’ (Ryan 2015: 9). Immersion is an embodied phenomenon: the text can be seen as a set of cues to construct an embodied (sensory and action) simulation of the described situation. Crucial to an embodied simulation is construal, the conceptualization of the situation in terms of a number of cognitive dimensions, such as specificity, salience, perspective, dynamicity, and focus of attention. An immersion approach allows us to analyze Homeric vividness by means of a wide range of textual cues, of a narratological character (such as narrative speed, order, focalization, narratorial visibility, and suspense) as well as of a linguistic character (such as vocabulary, tense-aspect, modality, deixis, case marking, and intonation units). Using Homer’s description of Calypso’s cave (Od. 5.59-73) as an example, I will argue that a text’s immersive power is not only dependent on the presence of salient sensory details but is brought about by a tight interplay of various textual dimensions.

In Ancient Greek narrative, the imperfect typically presents the state of affairs as ongoing in order to serve as a temporal framework for the occurrence of one or more other states of affairs. However, in narrative we also find a considerable number of imperfects (especially with verbs of motion and verbs of speech) which refer to completed states of affairs. In this paper, it is argued that Cognitive Grammar notions such as construal, temporal scope of view, profile and base can be helpful in describing aspectual contrasts. The imperfects at issue express the narrator’s construal of the state of affairs as unbounded, thereby emphasizing that the state of affairs is of continuing relevance in the subsequent narrative.