Grammaticalization of tense?

Grammar questions which are not related to any specific text.
WAnderson
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by WAnderson »

OK, well I guess that puts me back at square one. Thank you for your responses.
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

WAnderson wrote: September 23rd, 2017, 6:02 pm OK, well I guess that puts me back at square one. Thank you for your responses.
Right away, Mike gave you the correct answer, after that things got obscure. This is known to happen.
Last edited by Stirling Bartholomew on September 23rd, 2017, 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
WAnderson
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by WAnderson »

I think one problem for beginners (and this is the Beginners Forum) is a misunderstanding (or the improper use of) terminology relating to this topic.

For instance, when Wallace (555) writes
In the indicative, the aorist usually indicates past time with reference to the time of speaking (thus, "absolute time"). Aorist participles usually suggest antecedent time to that of the main verb (i.e., past time in a relative sense). There are exceptions to this general principle, of course, but they are due to intrusions from other linguistic features vying for control ....
what terminology should be used to describe this particular category/function of the aorist? Is the aorist indicative exhibiting "tense" (temporality)? Or ...?
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

You can't expect understand this stuff if you keep reading Wallace. He speaks a private metalanguage known only to himself and his followers. Wallace didn't contribute to the 2015 verb conference. That's where you want to go to understand the stuff. I think the title is the Greek verb revisited. Required reading for aspectologists.

https://lethlib.bibliocommons.com/item/ ... _revisited
C. Stirling Bartholomew
WAnderson
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by WAnderson »

Thanks Stirling. The book was on my buy list, will move it to the top. I'll drop the topic now ... except to ask, if anyone cares to answer ...

Speaking of Wallace, what place should his book have today? I've read some who swear by him and others who swear at him. Should it be on a very short list of must-have grammars? Obviously opinions will vary, just curious. Robertson is quite old, but I still hear him recommended.
Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote: September 23rd, 2017, 7:48 pm He speaks a private metalanguage known only to himself and his followers.
Quite boldly stated. His metalanguage isn't private, rather it's the one which most people who have read grammar of any language can understand. It's the linguists who use metalanguage which isn't understood by the common people. I don't blame them, I use it myself as much as I'm able to (and usually more :roll: ).

I don't see Wallace having devoted followers in the academia, rather he's used much because the book is practical, accessible, easy to use, clearly written, relatively cheap and pretty much everyone owns it. Nowadays it's the de facto standard if you want to give a label to some grammatical form. If you want to either a) read Koine as Koine or b) understand Koine theoretically based on linguistics you don't need his grammar. If you want to take part in the prevalent academic exegetical/theological discussions or follow them you need that book. Whether it's a good thing or not.
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote: September 20th, 2017, 12:38 pm When we hear someone making a distinction between affected and unaffected meaning, what sort of semantic theory is lurking under the surface of that reasoning?
When I hear those terms, I hear Wallace. I don't believe he has anything like a formal semantic theory, rather a lot of experience teaching grammar-translation of Greek, so it's probably tuned for that pedagogical approach. Basically, it is a guide for students to "drill down" to identify a sense in context.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

WAnderson wrote: September 24th, 2017, 1:00 am Speaking of Wallace, what place should his book have today? I've read some who swear by him and others who swear at him. Should it be on a very short list of must-have grammars? Obviously opinions will vary, just curious. Robertson is quite old, but I still hear him recommended.
I have Wallace. It has lots of categories for everything (sometimes not enough, but usually too much). People like it because it gives a check-list of possibilities they can audition (for which he supplies English glosses). It's old-school, which is not necessarily a problem (see Smyth, BDF), but not completely: there is some awareness of current, generally intra-NT Greek, debates. My biggest frustration is that it tends to avoid the hard cases, unless they involves something Christologically interesting. BDF is better for the grammatical perplexities.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Grammaticalization of tense?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Stephen Carlson wrote: September 26th, 2017, 7:30 am
Stirling Bartholomew wrote: September 20th, 2017, 12:38 pm When we hear someone making a distinction between affected and unaffected meaning, what sort of semantic theory is lurking under the surface of that reasoning?
When I hear those terms, I hear Wallace. I don't believe he has anything like a formal semantic theory, rather a lot of experience teaching grammar-translation of Greek, so it's probably tuned for that pedagogical approach. Basically, it is a guide for students to "drill down" to identify a sense in context.
[a response to both of your posts]

I agree that the lions share of Wallace's metalanguage has been gleaned from old grammars that some of us have in our libraries. However, while discussing the semantics of the verb he innovates introducing terminology you will not find in the traditional textbooks. There's a temptation to read semantic theory into Wallace's terminology. For example affected/unaffected might be understood as marked/unmarked or +/- prototypical or something else. Since the publication of the exegetical grammar I have observed others adopting Wallace's affected/unaffected. At this point one might ask are we certain about what we mean when we use these terms? Since they probably don't reflect borrowing from any formal theoretical framework, the question amounts to exploring the folklore of New Testament Greek pedagogy.

Postscript

Reading the recent literature on the Greek verb reminds me a little bit of wandering across the Nisqually glacier at night in the fog. Our objective was the Fuhrer Finger Route, Mt. Rainier. Our guide was over qualified with 14 previous years on the mountain. We had maps, compass a guide who knew the territory very well. Nevertheless we wandered onto the Kautz route too far to the west having to backtrack several hours of sidehill on steep ankle breaking ice. What was supposed to be the shortest route up the mountain turned into a 26 1/2 hour ordeal.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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