[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Tense-Aspects
Rolf Furuli
furuli at online.no
Tue Sep 19 02:54:43 EDT 2006
Dear Con,
I must disagree with a part of your answer below. We agree that the
combination of "tense" and stative verbs cause a different effect than a
conbination of "tense" and action (fientive) verbs; in all analyses we must
distinguish between actions and states. Greek verbs must be analysed in
their own right, and not through the English translations of them. But since
we write English, our translations of course suggest how we view Greek
verbs.
I have three comments regarding your explanation of ingressive aorist:
1) We should not speak of "Aktionsart" in connection with states. True,
state and Aktionsart occur in parallel slots in the grammatical hierarchy,
but states entail no action; a state simply continues to hold without any
input of energy (Aktion).
2) The rendering "he began to think" is semi-fientive (semi-actional) or
even fientive (actional); it implies an input of energy.
3) Since I am not a native speaker I may miss some nuances in English texts.
but I would view "he began to think" as an English expression trying to
convey the Greek imperfective aspect just as much as "he began thinking".
Because the English aspects are much more restricted than the Greek ones, as
far as use is concerned, circumlocutions are necessary in English to try to
express the force of Greek aspects.
You may be following Fanning, who has the following comment on p. 137: "The
aorist aspect with states denotes frequently the ENTRANCE of the subject
into the condition denoted by the verb. Thus, it makes a shift in sense and
in effect becomes a type of ACTIVE verb when the aorist is used." I agree
with the first part regarding the entrance into a condition; we find exactly
the same with perfect (QATAL) in Hebrew. But I disagree with the second
part. Can you, apart from your gut feeling, *demonstrate* that aorist used
with states makes them into actions?
Fanning refers to Luke 9:36. I would say that the use of SIGAW in the aorist
in this verse indictes two things, 1) the entrance into the state, and
2)that the state continued to hold. Where is the action here? This example
also shows that an aorist needs not include the end of an action or a state.
In this case the focus is on the beginning of the state (beginning included)
and a part of the state (the end not included).
I analyse aspect on the basis of angle of focus, breadth of focus, and
quality of focus; all being functions of refrence time and event time.
Applying these to the example I get the following result:
1) Angle of focus: to the left of nucleus of event time (the beginning and a
part of the state is made visible).
2) Breadth of focus: the beginning and a part of the state with undefined
duration is made visible (they kept silent).
3) Quality of focus: No details are made visible (states do not have any
inner structure, they simply hold).
My translation: "They kept quiet." or "They kept silent."
Let us turn to an example of a verb of action in the imperfect, namely Acts
11:2 and the verb DIAKRINW. I analyse this verb in the following way:
1) Angle of focus: to the left of nucleus of event time (the beginning and a
part of the action is made visible).
2) Breadth of focus: the beginning and a part of the progressive action is
made visible (they began to contend with him).
3) Quality of focus: Details are seen (we see a situation of discussion and
contention unfolding).
My translation: "So when Peter came up (aorist) to Jerusalem, the
circumcised ones began to contend (imperfect) with him.
To Bert:
"A summary view" as a definition of the aorist simply is a useless metaphor.
Expressions such as "the unmarked tense" and "the default tense" are
linguistically meaningful. But they need a context, a description of "the
marked" member, and a description of "the default tense" of what. Such terms
may say something regarding the function of the aorist, but they say nothing
about the nature of it.
Best regards,
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Con R. Campbell" <Con.Campbell at moore.edu.au>
To: "Bert de Haan" <b_dehaan at sympatico.ca>; "B-Greek at Lists. Org"
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 12:28 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Tense-Aspects
> Bert,
> Aspect operates in cooperation with other elements, such as lexemes etc.
> When perfective aspect (aorist) is used with a stative lexeme (such as
> 'think'), the net effect is an ingressive Aktionsart: 'he began to think'.
> This beginning to think is still viewed as a whole. The difference between
> the ingressive aorist and the ingressive imperfect is that the imperfect
> will usually portray some kind of continuity (since it provides an
> interval
> view), while the aorist will not normally portray continuity (since it
> provides an external view). The imperfective version might be: 'he began
> thinking'.
>
> Hope that makes tense ;)
>
> Con Campbell
> Moore College
>
>
> On 19/9/06 9:13 AM, "Bert de Haan" <b_dehaan at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>> Right now the discussion is going beyong my ability to follow.
>> That is fine but if I had an answer to my question of Fri Sep 15 20:59:37
>> EDT 2006
>> my understanding may be a bit better.
>> I wrote:
>> " If the aorist is meant to give a summary view ( or is the unmarked or
>> the
>> default tense) of a past action, how am I to understand the Ingressive
>> aorist.
>> Would the Imperfect not be the more logical tense for that?"
>>
>> This question is quite basic compared to where the discussion has gone
>> but
>> one thing I like about this group is that there is room for beginning
>> students as well as advanced students.
>> Thank you.
>> Bert de Haan.
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