[B-Greek] Re.. Imperfect and Aorist Aspects!

Webb webb at selftest.net
Tue Sep 5 12:20:45 EDT 2006


I was going to say the same thing as Elizabeth. The aorist is the unmarked,
or, as I like to gloss it, "unremarkable" past in the indicative. It doesn't
tell you the short or long of the action--it doesn't make any time-related
characteristic of the action "stick up" at all. When you see the imperfect,
that should usually prick up your ears to a sense of extension coming in.
The thing may have happened extendedly, continuously, repeatedly, or
habitually. As I recall, one or more of the ancient grammarians talked about
the aorist as indicating punctiliar action, and that way of explaining it
carried forward into the 20th century. But it's a rough generalization, and
isn't exactly right. Contemporary, linguistically sophisticated, grammarians
(e.g. Porter, who has extensive training in linguistics) focus more on the
marked/unmarked characteristics of verb forms. It partly depends on what you
would be naturally led to imagine given the nature of the verbal action
itself. Whatever's the "default" notion conveyed by that verb in the past,
that's what you get if it's in the aorist. 

To pick out the first example that comes to mind, living in a city is
certainly not well described as a "punctiliar" action. But in Mt. 2:23, the
aorist is used to express the information that Joseph lived in
Nazareth--presumably continuously for many years until he died. If the verb
would naturally tend to make you to think of a short action, then the aorist
will not do anything to shift your sense of it. The same goes if it would
naturally tend to make you think of a long action. In that sense it is
"unmarked". 

To give the converse example, note this little passage from Matthew 14:
35b They sent word out to that whole area, and people brought him everyone
who was ill. 36 And they would ask him if they could just touch the edge of
his robe. And whoever touched it was completely healed.

All the finite verbs here are in the aorist except one--the act of someone
asking if they could touch Jesus' robe. That verb is in the imperfect, which
made me think, Matthew is telling me that people did this typically,
regularly, over and over. So I've rendered it, "they would ask him". All the
rest get normal English preterits. 

Webb Mealy

-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Kline
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 8:24 AM
To: pastorpaul1957 at bellsouth.net
Cc: B-Greek
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Re.. Imperfect and Aorist Aspects!


On Sep 5, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Paul F. Evans wrote:

> What is the exact definition of
> undefined.

Some linguists use the terms marked/unmarked to identify forms that  
are default    (unmarked) in contrast with forms that carry  
additional significance (marked). I suspect that "undefined" is  
probably a synonym for unmarked.

Elizabeth Kline




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