[B-Greek] Switching Imperfectives to Perfectives
Mitch Larramore
mitchlarramore at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 15 21:42:43 EST 2005
The recent discussions on Aspect, especially those
defending the aspect-only (Porter) view, seems to be
more subjective than I had originally thought. I can't
help but wonder if someone with a lot of time on
his/her hands could not defend the position that
Aorist verbs are Imperfective and Present tense verbs
are Perfective. Could he/she not argue that the
Present tense verb is used here or there to stress a
Perfective aspect. He/She would probably add something
like, "We have to think like ancient Greeks, not like
modern English people." Even on "the coming one"
(ERCOMENOS) now being discussed, why not say, "The
present tense actually is used to portray the coming
as a completed event. The writer is using it for
rhetorical effect, etc." After all, aspect is not tied
to reality, but how the writer/speaker wants to
portray the event. I can't help but think that someone
could write a Verbal Aspect book like Porter, take the
postion that Aorists are imperfective and Presents are
perfective, and start reinterpreting the
Tradionalist's (mis)understanding of ancient Greek.
Mitch Larramore
Sugar Land, Texas
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