[B-Greek] Re: Understanding Greek Verb Tense/Aspect

R Yochanan Bitan Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Fri Apr 9 10:44:40 EDT 2004


Eddie, XAIREIN

Since you included me in your response:
For the record, my reponse was explaining that Greek indicatives do, Yes, DO
indicate time. The email program was citing someone earlier, not me, who was
following what I consider to be incorrect advice. 

Greek indicatives indicate both time and aspect (despite what a few might
say), and non-indicatives indicate aspect (despite their sometimes
time-oriented names).

ERRWSO

Randall Buth

Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Rothberg International School
Hebrew University
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il

-----Original Message-----
From: Eddie Mishoe [mailto:edmishoe at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Friday, 09 April, 2004 14:00
To: R Yochanan Bitan Buth; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Re: Understanding Greek Verb Tense/Aspect

I think I will be asking a very naive question with
this, but how could one argue that the Greek of the
New Testament does not have "time" in the Indicative?
I just assume all languages use "past" tense verbs in
ways that are not exclusively (restricted to) "past,"
and the same for present tense verbs (and I guess
futures for that matter).

Eddie Mishoe

> >>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
> 
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek


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