[B-Greek] Re.. Imperfect and Aorist Aspects!
Con R. Campbell
con.campbell at moore.edu.au
Thu Sep 7 16:48:23 EDT 2006
Dear Brian and all,
I think it is worth noting in this discussion, that it should not be about
whether or not aspect exists. The existence of aspect in Greek has been
acknowledged by most grammars for the last 100 years at least. Though the
terminology was confused and conflated with Aktionsart, Zeitart etc.,
especially up until 1925. The real question is: how important aspect is in
relation to 'tense', and whether or not tense exists.
I have just completed a PhD thesis on verbal aspect in Greek (it is being
examined at the moment), and my opinion is (since Brian is taking a poll on
the issue) that the existence of aspect is undeniable. Personally I agree
with McKay, Porter and Decker that tense does not exist. Aspect is a
subjective choice (in theory, and allowing for certain constraints that
minimize choice). Where I part with most is that I believe there are only 2
aspects, rather than 3. As most in the world of general linguistics would
acknowledge, stativity is not an aspectit is an Aktionsart value. There is
also a surprising number of Greek grammarians who think similarly: Fanning,
Olsen, Ruiperez, and Evans to name a few. As most other languages
demonstrate, aspect is a binary opposition of perfective and imperfective.
That's my position for what it's worth.
Con Campbell
Lecturer
Moore Theological College
Sydney
On 8/9/06 5:43 AM, "Brian Abasciano" <bvabasciano at gmail.com> wrote:
> This discussion brings me back to a question I asked several weeks ago
> after I first joined the list. I asked what people thought about aspect
> theory, Porter, etc., and was directed to the archives. That is a
> perfectly understandable response to my former query. But part of what I
> was wanting was to see where everyone was at. In a sense I am interested
> to see who buys aspect theory and to what extent, a poll of sorts for
> those involved with B-Greek in order to get a pulse on what sort of
> inroads aspect theory a la Porter et al has made into Greek scholarship.
> It would appear to me that it is still the minority view, perhaps
> evidenced by Wallace's rejection of it in what seems like the most used
> (or perhaps I should say cited; and this is not to say most authoritative;
> for that I would still say it is BDF) intermediate/advanced grammar.
> However, there was an article in JETS recently by Robert Picirilli arguing
> that aspect theory has won the day (I have not read through it yet
> however and am not sure if that is his estimation of the evidence or of
> scholarly opinion).
>
> So I am wondering if people would not mind stating where they are on the
> issue at present. Cindy's position is obvious. I will start off by saying
> that I do not fully accept aspect theory as propounded by Porter, though I
> believe that it has made very significant contributions that have changed
> my approach to Greek so that my approach is now a combination of aspect
> and the traditional approach. I accept certain aspects (pun intended) of
> aspect theory and reject others, retain certain aspects of the traditional
> appproach and modify others. In particular, I believe that the choice of
> tense does depict the type of action in general along the lines of
> tradional categories but in the subjective view of the author, not as a
> claim that the action took place objectively in that way, but in the way
> the author desires to portray the action for whatever reason at the time
> of writing. I can accept that time is not necessarily inherent in what we
> call Greek tense, but that the tenses do h
> ave unmarked time value that context can indicate are other than the
> typical time value associted with the tense in question.
>
> Do not feel you have to say a lot on this, though please feel free to do
> so. The more the better. But even if people indicate a yeah or nay on
> aspect theory (though I suspect most views would not be so clear cut),
> that would still be helpful to get a beat on where the subscibers of this
> list are at at least, and hopefully that would be some (even if not
> scientifically reliable) indication of where Greek scholarship is at in
> general.
>
> Thank you and may God bless you,
>
> Brian Abasciano
>
> ********************************
> Elizabeth, Bill, Paul and all
>
> I just read this thread this morning, and though I'm not sure that you'll
> all feel that I do a better job of explaining, or that I'll settle the
> issue for you, I'm glad to make a "few" comments about aspect, and
> apologize for the length of the post.
>
> First, I follow Porter's argument closely with the exception of the
> imperfect, and Levinsohn and I are quite close in how we think the
> imperfect functions, though we would describe it differently.
>
> Incidentally, Porter's work is the result of an interdisciplinary
> doctoral thesis with the linguistics and the biblical studies departments
> at Sheffield, backed with an MA in English at Claremont--and I say this to
> clarify the thorougly linguistic foundation of the approach. More
> recently, a close associate (Matt O'Donnel--the creator of OpenText.org)
> has received a two year appointment to work with Michael Hoey (one of the
> most prominent systemic functional linguists) on his lexical priming
> theory.
>
> In SFL aspect theory as Elizabeth and others have indicated, the aorist
> is simple, undefinied and default action. Like William Ross has so aptly
> observed, there are so many examples of the aorist referring to continual,
> gnomic, repeated, present and future, that time would fail me to list them
> to say nothing of space. See Porter's work on aspect. Therefore past is
> not considered to be part of the minimal semantic contribution of the
> aorist.
>
> How do we know the aorist is present, future, etc. in those cases? The
> context supplies the temporal information. How do we know if an aorist is
> past? The context supplies the temporal information. Fact: the aorist does
> occur (collocate) with the past the most, hence the common assumption that
> it is past. When it doesn't, people make up cute categories such as "the
> gnomic aorist" as if that has explanatory power. Just look in the back of
> Wallace for all the categories that the aorist has to be qualified with if
> we retain a traditional approach.
>
> As far as Mounce goes, I would not advise you to use most first grammars
> as a source for an intermediate or advanced understanding of grammar such
> as verbal theory. We've all found that some of our first year assumptions
> don't hold up, but hopefully they got us by without too much damage.
> Mounce is aware of at least some of the discussion on aspect, but doesn't
> really buy it or process it--he tries to incorporate it with his more
> traditional understanding of grammar. And no, he didn't just do an
> etymological trick to come up with his statement. But I doubt that Mounce
> would have used the term "default" to describe it either.
>
> Paul Evans made some insightful statements about the importance of
> mood--and those who work out of a systemic functional linguistics
> framework (Porter, Reed, O'Donnell, Black, Levinsohn and a growing number
> of SIL linguists, me, etc.) would say that every grammatical choice
> effects/reflects meaning. As far as the use of the default aorist in
> statements that are theologically significant, that is consistent with
> this grammatical theory when one understands that one may use an important
> and profound theological point to ground the point one is making in the
> text (and ultimately, the "main point" of the text does not have to be
> more theologically important than its support material). In other words,
> one may cite a huge theological principle (such as Jesus was raised from
> the dead) to make a specific application that only applies to one point in
> time--but in the instance of communication, the application is the
> emphatic point, not the resurrection--the resurrection would be a gi
> ven that doesn't need to be proven or emphasized. And speaking of
> resurrection, look at how tense is used with EGEIRW in 1 Cor 15
> (especially around 15:15). Aspect theory would suggest that the author's
> aspect is changing, not the nature of the action--that a switch from
> perfect to aorist (present too) reflects a change in the status of the
> action in emphasis/focus/prominence. Of course it can't be a different
> kind of action (actionsart) when both tenses refer to the same action of
> Christ's resurrection.
>
> The use of the imperfect is for remote undefined action, and the perfect
> is close undefined action--I agree that the imperfect is "marked" but for
> the special function it serves of marking background/support rather than
> emphasis--and here is where I part with Stan Porter. In narrative, it is
> the ongoing contextual backdrop to a scene in which the discourse action
> line occurs in the aorist, as in your example in John 8:30. On the other
> hand, if a scene is set up with one or more imperfects, that sets the
> table more emphatically than a scene without background detail--so
> markedness theory wills out after all. The genitive absolute functions in
> a similar way, but is formally linked to a sentence rather than the higher
> level of discourse.
>
> This is more than enough space used, and I haven't yet added many
> examples. But you do see the theory, I hope.
>
> Cindy Westfall
> Assistant Professor
> McMaster Divinity College
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