Aspect of the Greek Verb

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Dec 16 19:09:48 EST 2002


At 3:46 PM -0800 12/16/02, Glendon M. Gross wrote:
>Thank you for this link.  I find your diagrams to be quite clear, and
>very similar to Goodrick's.
>
>Part of the reason I asked the question is that I have been greatly
>helped by this presentation of verbal aspect.  It seems to me to closely
>parallel ideas about time that may be understood in terms of Einstein's
>general theory of relativity.  I am pleased to know that this
>terminology is accepted and used in other references, as others have
>posted.  I also find it advantageous that this understanding may be
>easily diagrammed for clarity.

I would add just a couple caveats to this, based upon several threads on
the subject on this list over the years: (a) it would be best NOT to rely
upon these terms, "linear" and "punctiliar" alone for understanding verbal
aspect; (b) a recurrent problem in the discussion of verbal aspect is that,
although several descriptive terms like "linear" and "punctiliar" are used
by more than one textbook or reference work, there are nevertheless others
that are used by others: there simply is no universal conventional
terminology for designating or describing verbal aspect in ancient Greek.
So: whatever terminology one chooses to adopt, one would be wise to
acknowledge that there are alternative terminologies.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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