[B-Greek] Re: Understanding Greek Verb Tense/Aspect
R Yochanan Bitan Buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Thu Apr 8 16:24:05 EDT 2004
>>1) Tense does NOT convey when the action took/is taking place.
>>2) Tense only refers to the form of the verb.
>>3) Aspect is to be `discovered` based up on the form/tense of the
verb.
>>4) Apect refers solely to the kind of action: perfective,
imperfective, or
>>stative.
>>
>>Am I correct in my understanding or have I missed the boat?
>>
>>Lastly, can anyone suggest some supplemental material to BBG with
regards
>to tense/aspect/aktionsart that a beginner would be able to comprehend?
>
>Let me anticipate Rod Decker's offering of his excellent expansion and
>revision of Mounce's chapter 15:
>
>http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/documents/MounceCh15rev.pdf
>
>I think you'll find it helpful.
>Carl W. Conrad
[R Yochanan Bitan-Buth]
While I think that the above is very helpful on the concepts 'aspect',
'perfective' and 'imperfective',
I was surprised to find it absolutely rejecting time in the indicative.
I think that is a mistake that mars an otherwise helpful article.
Most Greek grammarians and users do not accept the thesis that there is
no reference to time in the Greek indicative verbs.
If you've understood the concepts, the following will add a correcting
perspective.
Fuzzy, prototypical categories would help many a grammarian,
Example, (as if to prove that English doens't have tense, either?):
The heroes saw the bad guys coming and said, "WE'RE DEAD".
Only they lived, they're still alive.
So English doesn't have tense?
French can use the future in the past, etc!
It is safe to say that most Greek users treat the indicatives as
carrying, indicating all by themselves, default time.
Students need to learn that non_indicatives are non-temporal, almost
absolutely non_temporal. They do not mark time, even if using names like
"present subjunctive" (which I wish they wouldn't).
One of the major crimes against foreign learners of Greek may have been
the labelling of continuative-aspect infinitives, imperatives,
subjunctives and optatives as "present". They are
'imperfective'/'continuative', of course.
Blame in this case falls on the ancient greeks, ("O ENESTWS XRONOS"),
who were not confused by a misleading name any more than English
speakers are when misnaming English:
e.g. in English,
I RUN. = Present tense?
No.
It is non_temporal and probably defaults to NOT being part of the
immediate moment. You can state that while sitting, standing, etc.
However, if you say
I AM JOGGING
you need to be on the road jogging, or else rebutting a previous period
of non_jogging as in "i am jogging again".
Bottom line: the above article is good on the concepts but should be
taken with a grain/lump of salt (of varying sizes depending on viewer)
when applied to the INDICATIVE.
The "Greek imperfect" is both past and continuative/imperfective.
The future indicative is future and probably defaults to perfective,
the aorist indicative is past and perfective.
The present is tricky because in historical narratives it can be used
for perfective events (the so-called historical present), even though in
a real present situation it is imperfective/continuative.
Indicatives have both aspect and time and they are part of the time
markers of the "context" that your grammarians are talking about.
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Rothberg, Hebrew University
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
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