[B-Greek] Constantine Campbell / Basics of Verbal Aspect

Stephen Baldwin stbaldwi at hotmail.com
Wed Apr 1 22:47:14 EDT 2009














Hello Carl:

Thanks for your comments.
Who are the main "published" detractors of aspect? (i.e. where can I read their criticisms? [apart from b-greek!!]).

And what are the alternatives to aspect? And are they any better? In my [limited] experience, aspect is always presented in comparison with aktionsart. Is e.g. the "once and for all" aorist a product of aktionsart? Campbell mentions it, quotes Carson "Fallacies" who is also skeptical and also skeptical of the temporal properties of indicative verbs...

What do you think of Campbell's placement of aspect wrt aktionsart? [aspect being semantic, aktionsart being pragmatic?]. It was such utterances from various pulpits about "the greek aorist tense shows that a,b,c" that was one of the reasons that got me into this in the first place!

As for consensus, is there a consensus on anything in this area? He does mention some consensus on non-indicatives being aspectual and non-temporal at the semantic level [p68]. But I thought that the controversy surrounding the subject was admitted -- esp. chapter 2 "History..."?

I must confess, in reading the book, it was of course presented as a theory that held water. After all, one would not put pen to paper in the form "this is a flaky theory and I'm not very sure about it but I'm going to try and convince you [and me] anyway". I never got the impression that the book was trying to be the final word but rather, a framework.

In reading it, I did wonder whether there are any GNT passages that detract from aspect as thus presented by CC. None have been metioned so far in my reading.

In closing, I can't help but notice a pattern in eminent greek scholarship is to have initials CC with Con somewhere. ;-). 

Best Rgds
Steve

Stephen Baldwin
stbaldwi at hotmail.com






 

> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> From: cwconrad2 at mac.com
> To: stbaldwi at hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Constantine Campbell / Basics of Verbal Aspect
> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:31:50 -0400
> 
> 
> On Mar 30, 2009, at 10:24 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:
<<snip my note on the book >>

> 
> The book is well-written, the material well-presented, and some very 
> basic terminology is nicely explained and illustrated. The complaint 
> that I, at least, have raised about it is that much of what is 
> presented "Basics of Verbal Aspect" is still in the area of theory 
> that is open to question: the view of the perfect tense as 
> imperfective in aspect, the application of spatial metaphor to 
> explanation of aspectual distinctions. I question whether what 
> purports to be a beginner's textbook should represent much that is 
> theoretical as if it were consensus perspective.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 
> 
> 


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