[B-Greek] Still confused on Aspect

waldo slusher waldoslusher at yahoo.com
Sat Feb 14 12:23:13 EST 2004


Mitch:

I've read Carl's response and agree with what he's
said. I would add a few observations myself. One,
there are two distinct aspectual features in a verb,
its grammatical aspect (so indicated by its FORM), and
lexical aspect (so indicated by its root or lexeme). 

You also should keep in mind that the present "moment"
that we have talked about, as when an event is
CURRENTLY happening or is happening NOW, is a moment
in time conceived of as instantaneous. Technically, a
second earlier was the Past and a second later is the
Future. So the Present is sometimes referred to as a
hypothetical moment, since it "lasts" for just a split
second. I think the Greeks were under this impression.
This may be one reason the Aorist was finally and
consistantly augmented, since it was not really needed
for the present. By NT times, it was a fixed past
tense verb form. So, the present time inherently
carries a "perfective" idea, and therefore, the
temporal nature of the present already has a
perfective "aspect" built in. Context and lexeme will
make the aspect (perfective, imperfective, or stative)
of the Present FORM evident.

That the past can cover a very long period of time may
very well be one of the reasons why the Greeks had so
many past tense forms.  Due to the temporal nature of
the past, multiple forms were needed to portray the
many aspects in which one can conceive of it.

Not all will agree with this, and I'm still
formulating my understanding of this complicated
concept.

Waldo


--- Mitch Larramore <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It seems like the Greeks had a way of expressing all
> three aspects (imperfective, perfective, and
> stative)
> in the PAST with the Imperfect, Aorist/Pluperfect,
> and
> Perfect respectively. And what I mean is that they
> had
> different FORMS for each expression. How did they
> express they same three aspects IN THE PRESENT? (The
> number of "aoristic presents" for example seems like
> an exceptional usage, not the norm like it is in the
> Past Tense.)
> 
> =====
> Mitch Larramore
> Spring Branch, Texas
> Student/Memorial High School
> 
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