[B-Greek] Fwd: Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Con R. Campbell con.campbell at moore.edu.au
Fri Sep 15 16:39:42 EDT 2006


Dear Rolf,

Thanks for the questions, and apologies for the late reply.

I am familiar with Dahl's TMA system, and I think Olsen's work on Biblical
Greek is an obvious example of its implementation. While I think Olsen's
book is excellent, I have a number of problems with it, and in turn with the
ET, RT, et al, conception of aspect. The major problem I have with it is
that it is a temporal description of aspect, as a kind of 'internal temporal
constituency'. I am not here addressing the issue of tense and the verb, but
simply our definition of aspect. I strongly oppose the idea that aspect can
be defined temporally. Aspect is 'viewpoint', and is therefore by definition
spatial rather than temporal. Fanning acknowledges this, and with regard to
perfective aspect says: Œthis relationship between the action and the
reference-point from which it is viewed is not primarily a chronological
one¹; Œa spatial one fits better, since the distinction is one of proximity
vs. distance¹ [Fanning, 27].

The problems that a temporal description of aspect create are manifold. A
common one is to say that imperfective aspect means that an action is
progressive. This will often be the case of course, but sometimes is not: 'I
know' is stative rather than progressive. So I totally agree with you that
it is a mistake to think that Ancient Greek expresses incomplete/completed
aspect. Rather, it expresses internal and external aspects. This is what
viewpoint refers to: the view from the inside and the view from the outside.

This leads me to your questions regarding remoteness. As I understand it, it
is a spatial category that fits neatly with a spatial understanding of
aspect. To use the well worn illustration of the street parade and the
reporter, the internal aspect is the view that the reporter has from the
street as he views the parade. If he views the part of the parade
immediately before him, his view is internal and 'proximate'. If he views
the part of the parade a block down the street, his view is internal and
'remote'. 

Temporal and logical remoteness are simply two of the pragmatic implicatures
of the semantic value of remoteness. Temporal remoteness = past temporal
reference. It is remote time, like saying 'those days are behind us'.
Logical remoteness may be unreality, untruth, uncertainty etc. Yes, this
applies to the different moods (as Carl pointed out), but has a place in the
indicative mood as well.

I totally agree with you that the subjective element in analysing dead
languages needs to be minimized, which is a question relating to method. The
worst attempt at this is to analyse such languages in relation to modern
languages. Paul Kiparsky pointed out this (now) obvious error in relation to
traditional analyses of the Greek historical present way back in 1968
(Kiparsky, Paul. ŒTense and Mood in Indo-European Syntax¹. Foundations of
Language 4 (1968), 30-57). It simply doesn't do the same thing in Greek as
it does in modern European languages.

But method is an issue for another post...

Yours,

Con Campbell
Moore College




On 12/9/06 7:42 PM, "Rolf Furuli" <furuli at online.no> wrote:

> Dear Con,
> 
> I agree with you that we should try to explain the linguistic phenomena
> that 
> we find instead of arguing about what we do not find. But in doing so, the
> question is our parameters, are they adequate?
> 
> Generally linguists analyse languages from the point of view of TMA
> (tense-mood-aspect). (See Ö. Dahl (1985) "Tense and Aspect Systems"). Not
> all languages have aspects, and in some languages subcategories are found.
> For example, in one language the form of the verb tells whether the
> reporter 
> has actually seen what s/he reports or whether someone else saw it.
> Therefore, we cannot a priori exclude  a proposed subcategory or even a
> pricipal category, such as your suggestion regarding "remoteness".
> However, 
> such categories need to be clearly defined or explained. So I ask: What is
> the technical term "remoteness" that you use? How is it defined, and what
> is 
> the difference between "temporal remoteness" and "logical remoteness"? And
> most important, how can we know that this category was meaningful for the
> ancient Greeks? Is there anything in ancient Greek manuscripts that
> suggest 
> that "remoteness" was a part of the people´s mindset?
> 
> As I already have mentioned I use the concepts "event time" (ET),
> "reference 
> time " (RT), and "deictic center" (C) as my basic parameters. These
> concepts 
> are understandable and are in a way universal; all  languages can be
> tested 
> by the help of them. As for aspect, the important point is the
> intersection 
> of event time by reference time (the focus, what is made visible to the
> reader). This intersection is different in different languages in three
> respects, 1) the angle focus  (whether it occurs before the beginning,
> including the beginning, occurring in the middle, including the end, or is
> resultative), 2) the breadth of focus (how great part of ET that is made
> visible), and 3) the quality of focus (are details made visible or not).
> Since there are two aspects and three parameters, the aspectual systems in
> languages can be compared in six different areas.
> 
> In English there are only two choices, namely, RT intersects ET either at
> the nucleus or at the coda. Thus, the aspectual opposition in English
> expressed by perfect and the present participle is "incomplete" versus
> "completed". The participle signals that the event at RT was not completed
> and perfect signals that the event at RT was completed (I analyse simple
> past as a tense and not an aspect). A basic error in aspectual studies is
> to 
> project the English system of incomplete/completed into dead languages as
> Greek and Hebrew. If we instead analyse these langauges in the six areas
> mentioned above, we may realize that incomplete/completed should be
> abandoned as definitions in these languages and that other definitions
> should be used. NT Greek is more complicated than Hebrew since the
> morphology of the verbs is more varied and since tense is a part of the
> system. Any analysis of a dead language is subjective and will contain a
> measure of circularity. The advantage of the system mentioned above, in my
> view, is that it reduces the subjective element by using parameters that
> can 
> be clearly defined and are easy to use in any language.
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Con R. Campbell" <con.campbell at moore.edu.au>
> To: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com>; "B-Greek at Lists. Org"
> <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 7:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Fwd: Imperfect and Aorist Aspects
> 
> 
> I still don't understand why appealing to silence is a good argument
> Randall.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Con Campbell
> Lecturer
> Moore College
> 
> 
> 
> 
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