The Historical Present of Atelic and Durative Verbs in Greek Tragedy

Among modern scholars of ancient Greek it is almost universally accepted that the historical present is only used for (telic) events and not for (atelic) states and activities. A survey of the extant complete tragedies shows that this view is untenable: there are passages where static verbs like κeimai 'lie' and eucdw 'sleep' are used in the historical present and where the historical present describes a state or activity which is extended in time. On the one hand this shows that punctuality or decisiveness cannot be regarded as the basic function of the historical present; on the other it leads to new interpretations of a number of passages in Greek tragedy.Adema, S. M., Discourse Modes and Bases. A Study of the Use of Tenses in Vergil's Aeneid, j Diss. VU University Amsterdam 2008