[B-Greek] Speaking clearly: grammatical aspect, lexical aspect

Eric Weiss papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Fri Jul 6 09:43:13 EDT 2007


Thanks!
   
  His definition of "aspect" seems easier to explain/understand than his definition of 
  "aktionsart."
   
  But by defining both as "the feature of the Greek language," he seems to imply that 
  other languages don't or may not have "aspect" and "aktionsart."
   
  I suspect that other languages also have "aspect" and "aktionsart," but they 
  are perhaps coded differently in their grammar and syntax than Greek encodes 
  them (if I'm saying this correctly.)
  
"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:
  
On Jul 6, 2007, at 8:41 AM, Eric Weiss wrote:

>> Matthew S. Demoss, _Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament
>> Greek," offers this for "Aktionsart": "The feature of the Greek
>> language whereby the quasi-objective quality of the verbal action is
>> indicated (duration, repetition, momentary occurrence, etc.), both
>> morphologically by tense forms and lexico-syntactically according to
>> contextual features. Some older grammars used the terms synonymously
>> with aspect."
>
> I have that dictionary at home. For comparison/contrast, how does 
> he define "aspect"?
>
> The above is "all Greek to me," though, and I'm not sure how best 
> to simplify and
> explain it to my class when it comes time to discuss verbs and 
> aspect. That's one
> thing I found from my brief perusal of this Pocket Dictionary - 
> i.e., sometimes the
> definitions presume a level of language understanding that a 
> newbie to NT Greek
> might not have.

Demoss re: "Aspect":

"The feature of the Greek language inherent to the tense-system thata 
denotes the speaker/writer's subjective viewpoint or portrayal of the 
verbal action, whether progressive ("internal," "imperfective"), 
summary ("external," "perfective") or perfect/stative."


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





  Eric S. Weiss
  

 
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