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

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Mon Dec 12 05:52:53 EST 2005


Dear list-members,

I have written a dissertation on the verbal system of classical Hebrew. Its 
methodology in relation to tense/aspect is relevant for the Greek verbal 
system as well. I think that the basic problem when Greek aspects are 
studied is the assumption that aspect is the same in all aspectual 
languages. And particularly the use of the opposition completed/incomplete 
(or, complete/incomplete) has led researchers astray.

Aspect has a "deep structure," and in order to find this, the three basic 
parameters "deictic center," "reference time," and "event time" can be used. 
Tense is the relationship between the deictic center and event time, and 
aspect is the relationship between event time and reference time. Thus, 
tense represents deictic time and aspect non-deictic time. In the English 
aspects there are just two options for the intersection of event time by 
reference time, either at the necleus of the event or at the end. In Hebrew 
there are severeal options for each aspect, and I found that English and 
Hebrew aspects were similar in three respects and dissimilar in three other 
respects. The last ones were most important, so the conclusion is that 
Hebrew and English aspects are completely different in nature. An analysis 
of Greek verbs on the basis of the mentioned parameters has given the result 
that the "deep structures" of Greek aspects are quite similar to Hebrew 
aspects, but different from the English ones. Greek verb "tenses" have to 
some extent intrinsic tense (e.g. imperfect and future), but this is lacking 
in Hebrew, Therefore, the verbal systems of the two languges are different 
even though their aspects are quite similar.

I have some disagreements with Randall (see below).

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com>
To: <cmeadows3 at verizon.net>
Cc: "b-greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Present & Aorist of general & abstract verbs


> 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.

If one avoids the straightjacked of completed/complete versus incomplete, 
and the author and his or her listeners/ readers have the same 
presupposition pool, I do not expect the problems mentioned.

 [[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.)

Here I disagree, there are no temporal restrictions at all in the Hebrew 
verbal system. But there are particular linguistic conventions. If we define 
Hebrew aspects on the basis of the relationship between event time and 
reference time, all the functions of the Hebrew verbs can be explained 
solely on the basis of an aspectual system.

 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
> ---

Best regards,

Rolf

Rolf Furuli Ph.D.
University of Oslo 




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