[B-Greek] Fwd: Imperfect and Aorist Tense-Aspects
Con R. Campbell
con.campbell at moore.edu.au
Fri Sep 15 22:41:32 EDT 2006
Mitch,
I get what you're saying, but I think one may view an action as a whole
without it actually having been completed. This relates to the distinction
that Bache (and many others) made about aspect being 'subjective' (within
certain constraints) and Aktionsart being 'objective' (within certain
constraints). I know that is an oversimplification, but the basic point is
valid. Again, the example from Mark 1:11 comes to mind: the Father is
pleased with the Son (aorist); is anyone willing to say that this
'pleased-ness' is complete rather than open-ended?
In other words, 'complete' corresponds too much to 'reality' for me, and
therefore belongs to the realm of Aktionsart and pragmatics, rather than the
more subjective aspect, viewpoint realm. Having said that, of course an
event that really is completed would naturally be expressed by perfective
aspect, but that doesn't mean that that is what perfective aspect is in
itself (semantically). Perfective aspect is the external viewpointviewing
the action from the outsidewhether or not the action has actually come to
completion or not.
Con Campbell
Moore College
On 16/9/06 12:23 PM, "Mitch Larramore" <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Con
>>> I think the major reason that thousands of future
>>> referring aorists are not
>>> found is that the future indicative is a FUTURE
>>> AORIST.
>>
> It looks like you are saying FUTURE (as to tense)
> AORIST (as to aspect).
>
>
>>> Perfective aspect views an action
>>> as a whole, rather than complete,
>>
> If it is viewed as whole, then the beginning and end
> have to be in view, which is exactly what I call
> complete.
>
>
> Strangely enough, nobody disagrees about Jude 14, 15
> in this respect: 14 is future to the time of ACTUAL
> writing, and 14 is past from the ACTUAL time of 15.
> Even those who hold to Greek grammaticalizing tense
> (and that Aorists refer to the past) agree that Jude
> 14 is future to the time of when the words were
> ACTUALLY written. I'm still trying to see the critical
> issue with this deictic center thing. As far as I see
> it, how one views grammatical tense is FIRST
> determined by how one understands where deictic
> centers are located. And it seems to me that there is
> leeway in where one decides to understand where the
> deictic center is.
>
> Mitch Larramore
> Sugar Land, Texas
>
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