The Cambridge Greek Verb Conference
Posted: July 3rd, 2015, 10:54 pm
More details about the upcoming conference about the Greek verb in Cambridge is here: http://greekverb.org/
ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/
https://www.ibiblio.org:443/bgreek/forum/
https://www.ibiblio.org:443/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3182
Ditto for everything.Jonathan Robie wrote:Wow, a great program with a very impressive list of speakers. Wish I could be there. I've registered to be notified when the proceedings are available.
1.1 I think the first point gets the relative posture of Fanning and Porter right, though Fanning's terminology (esp. procedural characteristics instead of Aktionsart or actionality) makes him a little idiosyncratic (a common plague in this field). I'm not really aware of how these two have modified their theories since the late 80s when they wrote their dissertations. The field (outside of the NT) has progressed a lot since then, it would be good not to rehash the debate as it stood in 1991 or so.Buist Fanning (Dallas Theological Seminary) – Porter and Fanning on NT Greek Verbal Aspect: Retrospect and Prospect
- Contrasts between the two (simplification)
- *]View of past scholarship/paradigms: Fanning more appreciative, wants to refine; Porter thinks most are wrong and need revolution (esp. on views of tense and Aktionsart)
- System-level vs. specifics: both want a system, but Fanning more interested in local texts/contexts, and Porter more interested in the network-level or model.
- Areas of consensus
- Verbal aspect is central to understanding Gk verbal meaning
- Aspect is a matter of author’s viewpoint (distinct from kind of action / Aktionsart)
- Aorist has perfective aspect; Present/Imperfect have imperfective aspect. Future and Perfect are still debated.
- Aspect is important to discourse structuring.
1.1 Agreed on augment as a marker for pastness "as a starting point": if it's anything like his work on the Greek middle, I bet he'll probably think that the augment is polysemous with marking pastness as its central, prototypical meaning. I have no clue who claims that the augment somehow reflect immediacy or nearness to speaker. (Could this be a typo by the summarizer??) Con Campbell, who does not favor the temporal meaning of the augment, takes it as a marker of "remoteness," not "nearness."Rutger Allen (VU Univ. Amsterdam) – Tense-Aspect in Classical Greek: Two Historical Developments on Augment and Perfect
- Augment
- Augment is still best seen as a marker of past-ness (as a starting point). Arguments that it reflects immediacy/nearness to the speaker are invalid.
- Augment is not always needed to signal past in narrative because that mode of speech (or genre) already sets that up for you. But greater need for augment for past in non-narrative (direct discourse) because you need a stronger verbal marker for the time shift.
- Use of augment in gnomic aorist remains difficult to explain. But it seems like the speaker is making a choice in how they want to portray the gnomic/generic situation, either emphasizing past-ness or present-ness with or without the augment. Thus, while use of gnomic present is more common but gnomic aorist is not that big a deal.
- Perfect
- Evolution: (stage 1) resultative-stative … (stage 2) current relevance / continuative … (stage 3) past perfective (not continuative)
- Aorist emphasizing change of state; adding reduplication to that aorist stem in the Perfect suggests resulting state
- Perfect also used for iterative, intensive, and continued relevance (aka anterior) in Homeric and Classical Gk
I have to admit I'm not familiar with Peter Gentry. He appears to be a Hebrew teacher at Southern but he is also doing some LXX textual work. It's not clear to me how he was supposed to fit with the program. (Maybe the summarizer omitted a discussion of LXX usage???) At any rate, his contribution seems to be an outline of the diachrony of the augment..Peter Gentry (Southern Seminary) – Function of the Augment in Hellenistic Greek
- The ε-/η- augment was a relatively late innovation in only a select number of Indo-European languages
- Augment in Hellenistic may indicate foregrounding
- The so-called secondary endings (most of which are used for past tense) are original. The so-called primary endings (used for present tense) are actually derived from the secondary endings (regardless of modern nomenclature).
- Between Homer and Koine, the augment became used to grammaticalize temporal value.
See http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... =30#p20215 and M. Aubrey's post linked there.Stephen Carlson wrote: Not sure what is meaning by the "intensive" perfect.
Well, obligatory in prose, perhaps. It's common but not obligatory in tragic poetry and in later continuation of the epic tradition -- Callimachus, for instance.Stephen Carlson wrote:Peter is at what we used to call "Louisville Baptist Seminary" (as opposed t "Louisville Presbyterian Seminary"). I've corresponded with him from time to time on matters concerning voice in the Greek verb. His profile can be checked at:Peter Gentry (Southern Seminary) – Function of the Augment in Hellenistic Greek
... I have to admit I'm not familiar with Peter Gentry. He appears to be a Hebrew teacher at Southern but he is also doing some LXX textual work. It's not clear to me how he was supposed to fit with the program. (Maybe the summarizer omitted a discussion of LXX usage???) At any rate, his contribution seems to be an outline of the diachrony of the augment..
http://www.sbts.edu/academics/faculty/peter-j-gentry/... 4. A little confusing, but this could be due to the summarizer. The augment became obligatory after Homer.
Hymn to Zeus, 8-9 wrote:‘Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται:’ καὶ γὰρ τάφον, ὦ ἄνα, σεῖο
Κρῆτες ἐτεκτήναντο: σὺ δ᾽ οὐ θάνες, ἐσσὶ γὰρ αἰεί.