[B-Greek] verbal aspect and extra tenses

Charles Johnson cpj5117 at gmail.com
Mon Jul 20 08:30:19 EDT 2009


I have recently read a few of Porter's works and am trying to make sure I
comprehend him correctly. So far, my understanding of verbal aspect's view
of tense is that the tenses constitute a system of opposing choices by which
a speaker/author textures his discourse through backgrounding,
foregrounding, and frontgrounding different elements.

If that is correct, I'm still struggling with understanding how verbal
aspect theory explains the "extra" tenses. The future I can live with, being
related to the subjunctive, but the imperfect and the pluperfect seem quite
redundant. How do they form opposing choices?



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