[B-Greek] Present & Aorist of general & abstract verbs

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Dec 12 04:04:26 EST 2005


On 12/12/05, cmeadows3 at verizon.net <cmeadows3 at verizon.net> wrote:
> Interesting commentary!
>
> Randall - You described a nontemporal view of the indicative verb as in the "counsel of despair".
>
> I have always been intrigued by Stanley Porter's work.  His pure aspectual view seems to make a lot of sense theoretically.  But it would seem that a 100% nontemporal indicative verb is a bit of a stretch on a very practical level.  I've read almost everything I could find by Porter as well as Fanning, Smyth, Moulton, Roberston, McKay etc.  Everyone has his/her own little twist.  What is the current state of scholarly opinion on this issue?
>
> Thanks.
> C Meadows

Thank you for the question, though I can only give an unofficial
'current state'.

If you've read SMyth and Goodwin, then you know that the
non-indicative verbs have always been recognized as 'aspectual', even
though the nineteenth century used a different metalanguage and
sometimes exemplified this imprecisely with lexical 'kind-of-action'.
The indicative system indicates both time and aspect.
That perspective has not changed within the academy, voices to the
contrary notwithstanding (and usually duly footnoted).

You mentioned a 'practical' level. It sounds like you are leaning
toward recognizing time restrictions. Good. I think it would be a good
practice for "pure aspectualists" to write, speak, and communicate
with the system that they imagine. I suspect that they will find that
they either generate verb tenses that don't occur in ancient texts
when and where they might want to use them, or else they will restrict
their output and choices with adhoc parameters that their theory
doesn't support. [[This definitely applies to, and would help,
Hebrew/Hebraists, where the majority in the academy actually have a
'pure aspectual' view, contrary to the situation with the Greek
academy, yet there are restrictions in Heb usage that the aspect-only
theory doesn't explain (e.g., of 52 occurrences of BHeb maHar
'tomorrow' neither a qatal suffix-tense-verb nor a vayyiqtol ever
coincides in the same clause with maHar. Thus, even where time is
given in the context the Hebrew main verb is not free to use any
"aspect" form it wants.) Porter also thinks that Hebrew as a
pure-aspect-system is a 'given', and that it would give support to the
possibility that Greek is "pure aspect". It would probably be best to
leave Hebrew out of Greek discussions, one because it's Hebrew, and
two because it too includes time restrictions within its verb. See
Buth, Selected Readings with 500 Friends +CD]]

ERRWSO
RAndall
Randall Buth, PhD
randallbuth at gmail.com
www.biblicalulpan.org



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