[B-Greek] JETS article on Greek Verb Tenses (Picirilli)

Eric Weiss papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Wed Oct 26 17:24:47 EDT 2005


Randall Buth wrote:
 
> Greek readers/speakers have always known about the aspectual differences in both the 
> indicative and non-indictative verb systems. I just discussed this with two Greek teachers 
> here on Patmos. They understood perfectly well the correct usages of the ancient (of 
> COURSE! -- the basic distinctions remain today in modern Greek even if all of the system 
> doesn't remain). But they used the Greek names and only described aspect but did not 
> 'name' it. In fact, if and when I use a 'present' verb with the modern subjunctive I am regularly 
> corrected to the 'aorist' form. [[This is like English where "I sit alot on my job" is called 
> "present" but can be truthfully said while standing, but "I am sitting" can only be said when 
> actually sitting, or about to be sitting. English speakers use a misleading naming system, 
> but use the language correctly. "I sit" is not an actual present in the way that "I am sitting" is 
> present.]] The paradigm shift for Greek concerns how foreigners talk about Greek. It is 
> important, but in fact almost no one does this because MANQANE is still called 'present 
> imperative' by most, instead of 'continuative imperative' 'imperfective imperative' or 
> PARATATIKH PROSTATIKH. I would suggest that Aspect is the correct English cross-
> linguistic term and should be the only one currently used for non-indicatives. Imperfectives 
> and perfectives (aorists) should then be named without time words if teachers would have 
> any hope that students would remember this after one year.

I am nearly done with the JETS article, but in light of Randall Buth's comments, it is interesting 
that this apparent ongoing-since-1990 discussion of how to grammaticalize and discuss the 
Greek tense system is all being done by, and argued and debated among, American and 
English grammarians, with no Greek-speaking grammarians' (e.g., Caragounis) 
comments/views being mentioned or debated. I don't know if this is because there are no 
native-Greek speakers entering into the tense/aspect/aktionsart debate, or if their absence is 
for other reasons - or maybe I just don't know of their names.
 
 

Eric Weiss <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Yesterday I received my copy of the September 2005 (Vol 48, No 3) issue of JETS (Journal of 
the EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY) - mine was a late renewal - and there is a 23-
page article (beginning on page 533) by Robert E. Picirilli, professor emeritus Free Will Baptist 
Bible College (Greek teacher for nearly 50 years), entitled "The Meaning of the Tenses in New 
Testament Greek: Where Are We?" He interacts with Porter, Fanning, Carson, Wallace, 
McKay and Decker.
 
"The world of scholarship about the Greek verb is in ferment, and the outcome promises to 
have a significant effect for all of us who interpret the NT. Since about 1900 there has been a 
paradigm shift in understanding the Greek tenses, and, as George Guthrie has observed on 
this subject, 'We do not care for people messing with our paradigms.' Even so, we are being 
asked to reexamine some strongly-entrenched assumptions about how we understand and 
exegete the Greek verb. My purpose in this paper is to provide an introduction to the new 
paradigm, called 'verbal aspect' theory, and to survey the issues that are involved and in need 
of resolution." <snip>
 
 
This might be of interest to several on this list.
 
 
 
 
 
 


Eric S. Weiss



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Eric S. Weiss


		
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