[B-Greek] Campbell and Aktionsart

Con Campbell concampbell at mac.com
Sun Apr 5 16:31:13 EDT 2009


Randall,

If you look at my wording carefully, you will notice that I said 'Most  
Greek scholars now agree'. That phrase is deliberate because I am well  
aware that many linguists use the terminology differently from the way  
it has been used within Greek scholarship. I have adopted the usage of  
'pragmatics' and 'Aktionsart' in the exact same way as the leading  
Greek verbal aspect scholars: McKay, Fanning, Porter, and Decker. If  
you have a problem with my use, you have a problem with theirs also.  
Personally, I have been in two minds about whether that is right, but  
my conviction is that I would rather have a conversation with Greek  
scholars using the language the way they use it (since I'm interested  
in interaction more than wrist-slapping).

Furthermore, it would be nice if, for a change, you would interact  
with my published material (rather a blog snippet). You seem quite  
happy to attack a straw-man created through lack of genuine scholarly  
interaction.

Con Campbell


   1. Campbell and Aktionsart (Randall Buth)


from a webblog comment by Campbell:
> Finally, I should mention another distinction between aspect and  
> Aktionsart.
Most Greek scholars now agree that aspect is built into the verb (it
is semantic),
while Aktionsart is not built into the verb (it is pragmatic). This  
means that
whenever you see an aorist, it will convey perfective aspect, because
perfective
aspect is built in. But only some aorists will be punctiliar. Others
will be iterative.
And others still will be ingressive. These Aktionsart descriptions are
not built
into the aorist, but are worked out from what the aorist is ‘doing’  
in
the context.>

Wow, Campbell really was as far off the mark as had been presented in  
the
previous thread, where I assumed that Campbell himself had not called
Aktionsart "pragmatic". AKtionsart is not pragmatic but is the  
inherent lexical
meaning of a verb being interacting with aspectual choice. Pragmatics  
deals
with the communicative value of a choice of a structure and is NOT  
usually
used to refer to aktionsart by linguists.
For example, an 'iterative aorist' is just funny to think about. The
aorist is NOT
iterative (repeating). If the lexical meaning of the verb includes
iteration, then
that iteration remains under the surface of the aorist view, which  
looks at the
whole iteration as a single set. But that iteration is not a pragmatic  
feature
that is added to the communicative presentation. Eeeks! אכסא

For the record: lexical meanings of a verb include things like whether
a verb is
inherently durative (rings) or having a goal (arrives) or once- 
occurring (like
'sneeze, 'knock'). Features of durativity and telicity are typically
labelled 'lexical
aspect' and aktionsart by linguists. They are part of the semantic,  
lexical
meaning of the verb. They are not "pragmatic" usages, that is
aktionsart is not a discourse application of an aspect as Campbell  
suggests.
On the other hand, choosing an imperfect past verb to background an  
event
with a group of aorist past verbs is a PRAGMATIC choice. And it signals
something about the communicative value and how to process the  
discourse.

So not only is Campbell misleading on the nature of tense and Greek,  
he has
scrambled aktionsart, too. I had assumed that Campbell couldn't be  
that far
off on aktionsart. But I was wrong. He is that far off.
Greek students without a linguistics background should probably not be  
given
the book at all, because they will not recognize the  
miscategorizations and
may even try to mislearn some linguistics from the book.

Randall Buth

PS: Aktionsart (lexical aspect) is not critical for a beginning Greek  
student
because it is a formal, technical categorization of the "lexical  
meaning" of a
verb. That is, aktionsarts distinctions can be conveyed to a student
by carefully
describing the meaning and use of the verb and without abstract  
Aktionsarts
jargon. This is also related to Disposition (Voice) as Carl also  
remarked,
because the voice is regularly made with common Greek verbs as an  
idiomatic,
semantic picture of a verb rather than a subjective choice of a
writer. A writer
chooses whether to talk about ELQEIN or ERXESQAI (that is an aspectual
choice). [PSS: i.e., the choice of semantic aspect is a pragmatic  
choice, just
like the choice of semantic tense is pragmatic.]
But there is no choice about *ELQESQAI (?!) or *ERXEIN (?!). Those are
inherent to the verb and may be considered lexical. These latter Voices
marked here with * do not exist for ELQEIN/ERXESQAI and were worked
out in proto-Greek as the AKTIONSART and DISPOSITION of a lexical verb
sometimes lead to a certain fixing of an idiom/meaning. And once that  
took
place you have a lexical word with all of its internal  
characteristics. Those
characteristics, of course, may only become visible as someone sees a
verb used in tens or hundreds of contexts.

We even see some surprising pairings, like YPAGEIN 'go away,depart'  
active
(yet almost 'middle' in the sense that it develops from a transitive  
verb and
is used intransitively) and basically used when imperfective (PARATATIKH
open-ended) aspect is desired and paired with APELQEIN active 'go away'
depart, for aorist marking, in the Koine.
Imperfective/open-ended APERXESQAI becomes rare.

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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