[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Thu Sep 7 20:11:05 EDT 2006


Con egrapsen:
>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. ...>

I think that you've overstated the case for McKay. If I remember
correctly he believed that aspect was the primal distinction in Greek
but that it included tense.

As an aside,
sometimes I find Greek people getting comfort from a supposed sister
Biblical language "that does not have tense", as though Hebrew was
such. (Porter, for one,  explicitly used such a supporting argument.)

I like to ask Hebraists how to say approximately  "tomorrow I will
come" in Biblical Hebrew.

I would accept MAHAR AVO, UVATI MAHAR, ANI BA MAHAR,
but I would not accept *MAHAR BATI (* asterix marks unacceptable form).
they didn't say that in biblical Hebrew. Ever.
Kind of curious: if adverbs marked time relationship and verbs only
marked aspect,
why no *MAHAR BATI? Partial Ans: Ancient biblical Hebrew writers
hadn't read 19th century non-Hebrew Hebrew grammars. Bottom line:
Hebrew had both aspectual and temporal features within its binary
TENSE-ASPECT-MOOD system. (PS: *MAHAR BATI would correspond in greek
to *AYRION HLQON. I'm afraid I don't accept that either for 'tomorrow
I will come'.)

ERRWSO
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


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