[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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