[B-Greek] Aspect Followup
dhoxworth at charter.net
dhoxworth at charter.net
Thu Feb 12 11:34:29 EST 2004
><Mitch>
>Thinking then of just the Indicative for now, since that is what I am familiar with, the Present Indicative FORM...is it perfective, imperfective, or stative, of all three in one? (If I understand right, the Present Indicative FORM can simulate at least two of these aspects, so that is why I thought aspect was not an innate characteristic of a verb's FORM.)
<doug>
it is my personal understanding that it is not necessarily "inherent in the verb" or "an innate characteristic of the verb's FORM" at least for the present and aorist tenses. i believe that both the present and the aorist (i think the other tenses in the indicative are more narrow) can communicate several different aspects and this meaning is brought into view by the context. but if we were to look at the verb form all by itself outside of a context or outside of an utterance (as linguists like to say) then we could not say that it had either one meaning or the other or both (it really has none though we give it one in translation in our neat little conjugation charts to facilitate learning). therefore i'd say that the semantics of the form that the writer wants to emphasize are made visible by the context in which it is used.
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list