[B-Greek] Fwd: Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Sep 11 19:47:03 EDT 2006


KONW XAIREIN

thank you for the questions and chance to clarify. I'll intersperse below.

EGRAPSAS
>
> I still don't understand why appealing to silence is a good argument
> Randall.


It is not really silence but a standard approach to modern linguistics. One
of the classic ways that modern linguistics shows that their explanation is
useful and correct is that it correctly predicts what does not happen.

Back in the beginning days of generative theory one of the criticisms of
inadequate linguistic theory was that someone could write rules or theory
that over-predicted. That is, proposed rules would not just produce what
occurs in a language, "what is there" as you say below, they would also
produce output that was unacceptable to speakers of the language. Rules that
covered attested output but also generated unacceptable output were called
"too powerful" and were considered wrong. NB: powerful here is a negative
term. To say that a theory was too powerful meant that some kinds of
constraints were necessary on the rules, or that different rules needed to
be developed.

Such argumentation about what was acceptable and not acceptable appealed to
mothertongue speaker intuition. With modern languages that was a theoretical
pill that was normally swallowed, though it has its problems. For example,
there is no one today who can talk about "intuition" of 1850's English, or
1350's or 1550's. But the proper predicatibility of rules is still a desired
goal. Not too much potential output, not too little. And while we do not
have the easy access to a simple "acceptable" versus "non-acceptable" user
response, we can still ask the same questions. Even for modern languages,
those responses are essentially subjective and need verification. If a
speaker says that something is "unacceptable", one can always check
published sources of the language and thereby correct the first subjective
responses.

Well, that is something that we can do with ancient languages, too. We can
hypothesize an "acceptable", "non-acceptable" judgement and then check to
see if that is in accord with data. That is what I have done with *AURION
HLQEN. In modern linguistic argumention that would be a very provocative
challenge to someone who claimed that there was no TIME constraint within
the aorist. I dare say it would carry the day.

An aside on ancient languages and modern linguistic argumention. I would
agree that such argumention depends on the amount of attested language that
remains. I am very happy with ancient Greek because of the millions and
millions of words in the database. Biblical Hebrew is more problematic
because of its relatively limited corpus. The corpus is large enough to
produce solid results, but a tenfold increase would produce more surety on
many peripheral issues. Ancient Syriac/Aramaic is in a good position, at
least with 'classical Syriac'. When people look at individual dialects like
'biblical aramaic', Qumranian, Onkelos, Jewish Palestinian, etc., there are
often annoying gaps and holes that are left in some parts of the system.
With many ancient languages we simply have too little data to attain a
satisfying, complete picture: e.g., Phoenician (at least in its distinctive,
not-Judean characteristics), Ugaritic, etc.


> Also, I think you misunderstand the non-tense position (at least mine). I
> do
> not believe in "aspect only" either, but in aspect + remoteness (in the
> case
> of the aorist and imperfect). Remoteness simply replaces past tense in
> this
> analysis. Of course the aorist has a default past time reference. But this
> is due to its perfective aspect AND remoteness. Past time is remote time.
> Remoteness will often be expressed as remote time. The point is that it
> can
> be expressed in other ways too: i.e. logical remoteness, unreality,
> potential, etc.


You are actually quite close to a multivalent analysis here, almost arguing
my position but with different words. "The aorist has a default past time
reference." I am very happy with that statement. The imperfect is also a
past time, but different aspect. Apparently, the difference between your
'remoteness' and my viewpoint is that I would include "time" as one of the
features of what you call 'remoteness'. That is, "remoteness" includes a
+past reference. In that way I can explain why Greeks do not say *AURION
HLQEN. (Or, additionally, if they ever did say it, it was in a very rare,
restricted environment. NB: I mean exactly AURION 'tomorrow' being used
within the same clause as the co-occurring verb. Jude 14 is not such a case
since AURION is not used and thus a
change-in-speaker's-starting-point-of-reference can happen.)

Rather than trying to explain the absence of a feature, how about trying to
> explain what IS there? The tense-based theories are still incapable of
> explaining why only aorists, imperfects, and pluperfects are found in the
> protases of second class conditions, even when PRESENT time reference is
> intended. Why use an imperfect when present time is intended in such
> contexts? Can tense-based analyses EXPLAIN that? Not so far as I can see.


I will answer by example here.
If I WERE you, I would think about your comments some more. Or, for example,
to shift to a substandard, but very much real English: "if I WAS you I would
be worried about relying on the above 'problem'." Do you not see something
very similar happening in so-called tense-based English? Does the fact that
the English uses past-oriented forms in some conditional structures prevent
those forms from carrying tense within themselves? No. (Also, be very
careful with "present" and with the word "reference". I see lots of loose
talk about "present examples" in biblical studies. As though "the sun rises
in the east" were present. [I'm not claiming that you would say that.]
anyway it was dark out while I wrote that line. The sun was not rising.)

But a proper understanding of remoteness is capable of explanation. In such
> cases, remoteness is not being expressed as temporal remoteness but as
> logical remoteness. Hence the use of the imperfect, aorist, and pluperfect
> in second class conditions. They express remoteness, which will usually
> translate into temporal remoteness, but when it does not it expresses
> other
> kinds of remoteness.


As I mentioned above, you have just argued a time-inclusive multivalent
position. But you may be allergic to using a time word. Let me help you out.
If you use  remoteness to explain the lack of *AURION HLQEN, then your
remoteness means/includes "not FUTURE". Your remoteness includes a time
feature and a concommitant time constraint inside itself.

I would rather go with an analysis that is capable of EXPLAINING what is
> there, rather than one than cannot. And I would rather base the discussion
> on what is THERE rather than what is not.


Like I said, modern linguistics likes to check things out in both directions
in order to see if a theory is potentially pulling the wool over people's
eyes. I would actually turn your words around and say that your theory does
NOT explain what is "there", if it overpredicts. That is one of the reasons
that generative linguistics created such a revolution in the 50;s and 60's.
It exposed some theories and being inadequate.

EGEGRAFEIN
> > Hmm. It seems something irregular is going on with the list server. A
> > couple of hours later I don't see this response so i am double posting
> > via a different email. Please ignore the question on double posting
> > should the original post below appear.
> >
> > [delete]
> > From your double posting I am assuming that you would like a comment on
> > Jude 14.
> > [continue]
> >
> > Rolf EGRAPSE
> >>> I accept exceptions. But each of them
> > must be shown to a special case. Jude 14 is hardly a special case. We do
> > not
> > know whether the verse is a quote, and even if it were a quote (from
> > another
> > language than Greek), Jude was the one who chose  the aorist. Therefore,
> in
> > Jude´s mind an aorist with future reference would be perfectly
> acceptable.>>
> >
> > We radically differ here. I see the HLQEN as causing a change of
> > speaker viewpoint. It is looking back to the past, but since it is
> > talking about something that has not happened in our world
> > view/encyclopedic knowledge, the reader and speaker are taking a view
> > from the future. The context supplies the 'future' here, the aorist
> > indicative supplies a past viewpoint. And I would argue that this is
> > highly marked and very rare. (If one seriously wanted to argue with
> > that, then just show me some *AURION HLQEN examples. See below.) Greek
> > marks default future reference with the FUTURE verb system. Jude was
> > happy with both default futures and rare pragmatics. But I
> > differentiate an aorist being used in a future context from an aorist
> > having future reference, and the former does not rule out its carrying
> > a '+past feature'. It does not have future reference/marking. Just
> > like a French future can be used in a past narrative. the French
> > future does not mark the past, but it is used in the past even though
> > it marks future. (Thus, absolute non-cancelability is often an
> > unattainable ideal for human languages. Sometimes one needs to go
> > beyond Euclidean geometry and build non-Euclidean geometries in order
> > to deal with the real world.)
> >
> > In the meantime, I am waiting for ***AURION HLQEN. That is what I
> > claim is non-Greek, because the AURION sets the speakers viewpoint
> > before "tomorrow" and thus the HLQEN is blocked, not being able to
> > refer 'back' (aorist ind.) and 'forward' (AURION) simultaneously .
> > I've never seen one of these.
> >
> > The fact that I've never seen one of these tells me that if I ever do,
> > it will definitely be a very special context. Since you "accept
> > exceptions", you will probably even grant me such exceptionality with
> > a smile, SHOULD ONE EXAMPLE EVER BE FOUND. (folks, the difficulty of
> > finding such, should signal that something is wrong with absolute
> > tense-less analyses. I would argue that only some kind of mixed valent
> > analysis will ever work in the real world). In the meantime, as I've
> > said, I can only say that aorist indicatives have something in them
> > that block their co-occurence in a clause with an explicit future word
> > like AURION. I call that a feature of TENSE.
> >
> > I would link '+past' with AUKSHSIS "augment" [E-] and recommend that
> > any learner do the same. Otherwise, you will enter a neat, but
> > non-real world, and difficult to leave. ("aspect-only" is subjective
> > by definition and potentially unfalsifiable if one only looks at
> > aspect and then demands "unique, always valid" meanings for any
> > features that are measurable. That's called a stacked deck. Hotel
> > California.) The lack of *AURION HLQEN is not a stacked deck, just a
> > waving, flashing red flag.
> >
> > ERRWSO
> > Randall Buth
> >
> > Randall Buth, PhD
> > www.biblicalulpan.org
> >     ?
> >   
> > ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> > randallbuth at gmail.com
> > ---
> > B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> > B-Greek mailing list
> > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> >
> >
>
>


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


More information about the B-Greek mailing list