[B-Greek] Rewrite of Mounce 2nd ed ch. 20 by Decker
waldo slusher
waldoslusher at yahoo.com
Thu Jan 22 08:33:04 EST 2004
--- bgreek at ntresources.com wrote:
> > as less absolutistic than your statement that "In
> Greek a
> > verb form carries only the grammatical meaning of
> aspect; it
> > does not express time. Greek uses deictic
> indicators in the
> > context, which, along with other pragmatic
> factors, help us
> > determine the writer's intended time reference."
> > ...
> > Your statement seems to imply that verb tense is
> NOT a factor
> > in establishing the temporal context, i.e., it is
> totally
> > irrelevant. Do you mean that?
>
> Yes and no. The first statement is a *semantic*
> statement regarding what
> information is grammaticalized by the verb. Tense
> *is* part of the complex
> of contextual factors at the level of *pragmatics*
> that is involved with
> temporal reference. (Note the ref. to
> deictic/pragmatic in the statement you
> quoted above.) Confusing or ignoring the difference
> between semantics and
> pragmatics is one of the biggest problems in
> discussing this issue. Those
> who get "perturbed" when some of us challenge the
> "prevailing wisdom" on the
> subject rarely seem to make this distinction and
> some who mention it don't
> seem to understand the significance of it.
On this part:
Tense *is* part of the complex of contextual factors
at the level of *pragmatics* that is involved with
temporal reference. (Note the ref. to
deictic/pragmatic in the statement you
quoted above.)
This is Deckers comment. Ill ignore his final
statement in the interests of making this an academic
discussion.
Putting Tense at the pragmatics level creates problems
if you ask me. Under the assumption that Tense is not
grammaticalized, we should expect to see a far more
even distribution of the various morphological endings
in all the various time segments, since events can be
conceptualized as perfective or imperfective (or
intention) regardless of the Time they ACTUALLY occur.
I think Porters attempt to address this is one of his
shortcomings. To argue for example that Past Events
are generally portrayed as completed is to equate
Aktionsart with Aspect. And to make a hard connection
between how events occur and how they are portrayed is
to argue for SOME temporal element in morphological
forms.
Would anyone argue that the Greeks do not have adverbs
because they can be used as nouns sometimes?
=====
Waldo Slusher
Calgary, AB
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