[B-Greek] Present & Aorist of general & abstract verbs
Chet A. Creider
creider at uwo.ca
Mon Dec 12 11:40:19 EST 2005
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Ken Penner wrote:
> Hi Chet,
>
> Rolf may be following Marion Johnson on the labels for the relations among
> the three times: Speech, Reference, and Event. Robert Binnick discusses this
> on page 115 and 400-401 of _Time and the Verb_ (1991).
>
> A couple of quotes from Binnick will serve to show that the Rolf's view is
> in accord with "modern linguistic literature" (i.e., more modern than Comrie
> 1976 and Lyons 1968): "Tense is a matter of how R relates to S"; "What the
> relationship of E and R has to do with is, roughly, aspect (and/or relative
> tense)" (both from page 115). According to Binnick, the relation between S
> and E is termed "status" in "recent theories" (namely Johnson's).
Thanks, Ken.
There is no question but that "relative tense" (e.g. the present perfect,
past perfect and future perfect in English) involves R & S. The remainder
I simply don't understand. Marion Johnson was a student of David Dowty at
Ohio State and wrote a dissertation based on Montague Grammar in the 1970s.
I've known her for some 32 years (she lives in the same town as I do), but
unfortunately she hasn't done any linguistics for many years.
> I don't know of any question as to Binnick's authority on these matters; do
> you?
No, but I am dubious about a major break of the sort implied by this shift
in terminology/usage between Reichenback/Comrie/Lyons and something more
recent. I am unable to consult Binnick's book but wonder if more context
would make clear what he means. If not, then I remain mystified.
As before let me reiterate that my point was not to question the correctness
of the "new" definitions or their appropriateness in the context of Rolf's
but only to let readers know that that they are not standard. In the context
of this particular instance the standard definitions have been used with
great effectiveness not only by linguists but by logicians such as Montague).
That doesn't mean that they can't be modified.
Chet Creider
> Ken Penner
> Acadia/Greek
> Dissertation: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Qumran Hebrew.
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