[B-Greek] Pluperfect and Frontground
CWestf5155 at aol.com
CWestf5155 at aol.com
Sat Jan 24 15:45:29 EST 2004
Con,
I believe that the view of the pluperfect is primarily based on two criteria:
morphological bulk (maybe in a prototypical way--not every occurance fits,
but it fits generally) and markedness theory. That is, as you say, it is so
rare, that the author's selection the pluperfect instead of the perfect, etc., is
marked and "marked forms tend to occur in marked places." That is, the
author's choice of the pluperfect tense tends to collocate with prominence as
opposed to background. I tend to put much more of my money on markedness theory
than morphological bulk, though there does appear to be some connection.
Were you quoting Porter when you said that pluperfect "piggy-backs" on the
perfect's stative aspect? That throws me. I think its stative aspect is
pragmatically determined and reinforced by more traditional descriptions--you appear
to disagree. It would be interesting to see what you thought the pluperfect's
aspect entailed.
The discussion of aspect as it relates to background, foreground and
frontground is getting tweaked and refined. In the general discussion on prominence,
Porter and others recognize that the verbal aspect of the perfect or
pluperfect is only one of many indicators of relative prominence, and the "main point,"
"peaks" or "focus" of a story or "paragraph/unit" is indicated by a
confluence of indicators (a zone of turbulence [Longacre]). The use of these marked
forms is always emphatic (something like underlining or italics), especially in
contrast with the verbal patterns around it, but these verb forms will
generally occur in conjunction with other marked forms, discourse markers, deixis,
etc. (the combinations are unnumerable), when they mark the main point.
In other words, I think you are making sound observations. Part of this whole
problem is that Porter's early vocabulary and metaphors might lend themselves
to this kind of ambiguity--I think that more technical terminology and
carefully defined terms disambiguate what is being said, but makes the discussion
more esoteric.
Cindy Westfall
Adjunct Faculty Denver Seminary
In a message dated 1/24/2004 12:54:13 PM Mountain Standard Time,
concampbell at netspace.net.au writes:
I agree with Cindy's assessment of the background function of the imperfect,
but think the pluperfect also has this function; in many cases as
'background to the background'. In this sense it is marked, though I still
take issue with Porter's assessment of it as frontground along with the
perfect, especially as one of the key items for its marking (according to
Porter) is its unwieldy morphological bulk, which simply does not hold when
the actual usage of the pluperfect is taken into account - most morphemes
are not that large (due to being the pluperfect of verbs such as ORAW). And
while I recognise the significance of the pluperfect's infrequency, it seems
to me that a frontground reading of all pluperfects is an imposition on the
text. Again, a frontground reading of the perfect may be legitimate, but to
assume that the pluperfect 'piggy-backs' on the perfect (due to its sharing
of the so-called stative aspect) does not do it justice. I do, however,
value Porter's contribution and take him very seriously.
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