[B-Greek] Rewrite of Mounce 2nd ed ch. 20 by Decker

furuli at online.no furuli at online.no
Thu Jan 22 11:25:05 EST 2004


Dear Rod and Waldo,

I agree with you Rod that it is extremely important to differentiate 
between semantics and pragmatics. But such a distinction leads me to 
differentiate between *temporal reference* and *tense*; the first 
being pragmatic and the second semantic. Comrie's definition of tense 
is "grammaticalized location in time," which means that past tense is 
when reference time (RT) intersects event time (ET) before the 
deictic center (C), and future tense is when RT intersects ET after C 
(I fully agree with Mari Broman Olsen here). I do not see how it is 
meaningful to speak about "tense" in a pragmatic sense.

In my view we do not need a redefinition of tense, but we strongly 
need an elucidation of aspect, in order to get rid of misleading 
terms such as punctiliar, durative, complete, completed, incomplete 
and others. Just as important as  it is to distinguish between 
pragmatics and semantics, it is to distinguish between aspects in 
different languages, because their nature are different (here I 
disagree with Mari). I use three different parameters when I compare 
aspects between languages, and because there  are two aspects, the 
aspects can be compared in six different areas. Mari has described an 
excellent model for the English aspectual system, and when I apply my 
parameters in a comparison of English and Hebrew aspects (I work 
primarily with Hebrew and secondarily with Greek), I find that the 
aspects are similar in three areas and different in three. But 
because the aspects are different in both areas which are the most 
important ones, the two aspectual systems are completely different. 
As to English and Greek, I find the same differences as between 
English and Hebrew: three are similar and three are different, and 
the two most important ones are different. So the aspectual systems 
of English and Greek are completely different.

I have now completed an analysis of all the 70.000 finite and 
infinite verbs of the Hebrew Bible, the DSS and the inscriptions as 
to temporal reference, modality and certain syntactical traits and 
aspectual characteristics. My conclusion is that tense is not found 
in the Hebrew verbal system; no particular verb form codes for a 
particular location in time. Thus past reference and future reference 
must be construed on the basis the context. As to aspect, I conclude 
that all prefix forms (WAYYIQTOL, WEYIQTOL, YIQTOL) represent the 
imperfective aspect (though defined differently compared with its 
English counterpart) and all suffix forms (QATAL and WEQATAL) 
represent the perfective aspect. In order to get solid results when I 
apply my model to "Koine"-Greek, I would have to analyze *all*, or at 
least most of the verbs, which I have not done yet. However, my 
tentative results are that future and imperfect represent tenses 
"grammaticalized location in time" (imperfect being a combination of 
past tense and the imperfective aspect), while aorist and present do 
not code for tense, but represent the perfective and imperfective 
aspect respectively.

A weakness of many Greek grammars, in my view, is that aspect is only 
superficially defined, and no attempt is made to find the "deep 
structures" of the aspects (to use a concept from Chomsky as a 
metaphor). If there is the realization that aspect is different in 
different languages, one simply is forced to penetrate deeper into 
the subject aspect. So that is a good starting point. And to the 
student who started this discussion: It is good to start with 
learning the fundamental definitions of verbs in grammars that 
express traditional views. Having done that, you should develop 
skepticism and think that some of these are probably inaccurate, and 
then read other works which present radical viewpoints. You can learn 
much from this, but of course, the most important thing is to work 
thoroughly with the Greek text yourself and make your own analyses of 
great portions of text.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


Waldo Slusher's comments on Rod Decker's post:

>snip
>  > 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 Deckerís comment. Iíll 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 Porterís 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




More information about the B-Greek mailing list