Teaching aspect via english

Harry W. Jones hwjones2 at earthlink.net
Sun Dec 8 12:21:57 EST 2002



I think that Carl has pointed out the bottom line on all of the aspectual
talk that has been going lately and in the past on B-Greek. And this is
that the fat lady hasn't song yet. Of course he didn't say it quite that
way. I can't speak for anyone else and wouldn't even try to but I do
believe that I  have to take all the talk about verbs having only aspect
and no sense of time with a very, very  large grain of salt.

In His Grace,
Harry Jones

The fool has said in his
heart,there is no God. Ps. 14:1

But they that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their
strength. They shall run 
and not be weary. And they
shall walk and not faint. Isa. 40:39



> [Original Message]
> From: hefin jones <hefinjones at hotmail.com>
> To: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Date: 12/7/02 11:44:18 PM
> Subject: [b-greek] Teaching aspect via english
>
> Following up on our thread on Fanning and Porter, what do people think
about 
> the idea of teaching the concept of aspect as it manifests itself in
English 
> as preparation for introducing the concept in Greek? It seems to me that 
> many of us students think "aspect" is yet another thing which the
esoteric 
> language Greek, throws up at us, and we are  sometimes tempted to think
it 
> would be so much simpler if "english had been good enough for Paul"....
:-)
>
> The fact is aspect is there in English in the form of the aspectual 
> auxilaries: perfective "have" and imperfective "be". The difference
between 
> greek and english seems to be that time is more central to the english
tense 
> system. A further difference is that english allows the use of aspectual 
> "have" and "be" together (e.g. the Paul gag above).
>
> Further, and here I fully expect to be shot down in flames, isn't the
rough 
> conceptual analogy that exists between greek and english aspectual
systems 
> thus:
>
>     perfective   =  perfective
>
>     imperfective =  imperfective
>
>     simple       =  "aorist"
>
> Hefin Jones
>
>
>
>
>
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