[B-Greek] Campbell and Aktionsart

Stephen Baldwin stbaldwi at hotmail.com
Sun Apr 5 16:54:22 EDT 2009














Ladies and Gentlemen:
In order to further understanding among the masses:
Randall Buth describes, in somewhat apocalyptic terms, the inconsistencies of Campbell's definition of Aktionsart.

I duly found Campbell's blog [quoted by Dr.B] at http://zondervan.typepad.com/koinonia/2008/11/basics-of-verbal-aspect-2-of-5-by-constantine-campbell.html

Also -- Mike Aubrey's review of Campbell's work (http://evepheso.wordpress.com/category/language/linguistics/grammar/pragmatics/page/2/) describes this as "a minor issue":- 

"There is also one minor issue with the word Aktionsart as
well, though it has less to do with Campbell and more to do with
linguistics in general. These days the word is used to refer both to
lexical meanings and pragmatic meanings and rarely is there
clarification as to which one a given author is referring to. This is
seen in Campbell’s book relatively regularly. Aktionsart is
referred to as pragmatic on page 23 but on page 28 it is referred to as
lexical. These two distinct uses should have been described more
clearly. This holds true in general for any book or article on Aspect
& Aktionsart and is often a problem."

So what I glean from MikeA's blog is that Campbell may have been a bit sloppy with his definitions, but that Aktionsart can indeed be described as pragmatic under certain circumstances. [Mike/Randall: I trust I am both accurately understanding and comparing like-with-like from your writings...]

So on the one hand, Campbell's book will inflict unspeakable linguistic diseases on anyone not thusly inoculated; on the other, it ain't that big of a deal. (if I have correctly understood the esteemed gentlemen mentioned.)

Personally, I maintain my original position, whilst considering and investigating what the critics are saying. As a toddler paddling at the edge of the greek/linguistic ocean, I found the book very helpful, and written with a view to communicating information. [something of a rarity]. And the ensuing debate in the blogosphere and on this list enables one to read more insightfully. So despite the shortcomings and criticisms of the book, I still recommend it to my peers. And I'm grateful for the comments from the wider scholarly community on this list etc.

Incidentally Dr.B: I note that Campbell's blog has a reader comments facility.
Have you put your points there? I'd be interested to read any responses...
...and, if you would not recommend novices to read this book, what would you recommend that would be [a] more accurate, but also [b] comprehensible? [and, minorly [c], as affordable? :-)]

Rgds
Steve Baldwin
stbaldwi at hotmail.com


> Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 17:08:41 +0300
> From: randallbuth at gmail.com
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [B-Greek] Campbell and Aktionsart
> 
> 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
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

_________________________________________________________________
Rediscover Hotmail®: Now available on your iPhone or BlackBerry
http://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Rediscover_Mobile1_042009


More information about the B-Greek mailing list