[B-Greek] Second attempt - On Aspect
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Sun Apr 29 12:07:01 EDT 2007
Sanders egrapsen
> I do not agree with Porter on his definition of verbal aspect, but that is a
> different issue. if context does not require a ¡°tense¡± definition in the
> verb endings, then do not add one; leave it with aspect only.
Context, in Mark 1:11 would not require a specific tense marking,
which would allow many languages much freedom in their translation
choices.
However, Greek has marked EI 'you are', which contrasts with HS (and
HSQA) 'you were' in time, not in aspect. they are both imperfective or
stative. (Actually, the 'be' verb is so anomalous in every language,
that talking about its aspect is almost irrelevant.)
More importantly, Greek has also marked EUDOKHSEN 'I have become
please' with a time component by choosing aorist indicative. Aorist
indicatives have an augment (optionally dropped or not heard in some
phonetic environments like EU/HU, apparently always with the verb
EUDOKHSAI). Now, the augment is a time marker, not an aspect marker.
It is specifically 'pastness', and is irrelevant to aspect, since both
imperfective and perfective occur in the past with the augment. It is
the augment is is one of the bones in the throat of people who
describe Greek as having "aspect-only/zero time" in all of its verb
system. And that makes any Greek aorist indicative 'marked for time',
even in contexts where time would have been irrelevant.
ERRWSQE
Randall
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
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randallbuth at gmail.com
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