[B-Greek] Aspect of KATALLASSWN in 2Cor 5,19
Elizabeth Kline
kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sun Sep 27 15:43:10 EDT 2009
Verb aspect according to the SFL school (from Halliday famous
article 1967- S.Porter, J.Reed, many others) is a **choice** about
presentation which may or may not have any direct relationship to the
nature events described.
Elizabeth Kline
On Sep 27, 2009, at 10:17 AM, Michael Aubrey wrote:
> Imperfectivity never necessitates in of itself that a given action,
> event or state expressed by a verb continues and has not yet ended.
> It simply means that the imperfective verb itself has no referenced
> & specific beginning or end point. There may very well be an
> endpoint expressed elsewhere in the context, but that has nothing to
> do with the verb - in this case, the participle.
>
> Actually, now that I think about it, my first sentence referencing
> Carl above is a great parallel example to 2 Cor 5:19.
>
> In "what is going on in this verse," the verb "is going" is an
> English imperfective. And thus, there is no references to the
> beginning or ending. But like EN CRISTWi, "in this verse" provides
> the frame in which this progressive verb happens, limiting the
> action - and again like Carl said, the past tense ΗΝ is also a
> limiter here. The past assumes that there was an endpoint at some
> point, even if it isn't referenced. Here's an English example of the
> same thing. If I were telling a story to someone about something
> that happened yesterday, I might begin it something like this:
>
> 'So yesterday, I was walking to the store to pick up some fresh
> fruit. All of the sudden, a truck came out of nowhere and I barely
> got out of the way!"
>
> Here, "was walking" is the English imperfective aspect and it's
> clear that at that moment in the story, my walking was definitely in
> progress, but it's also clear from the context beyond that single
> verb that the walking did actually stop at some point later on.
>
> Likewise, "reconciling" is definitely situated in the past because
> of HN and is definitely limited to a narrower past event by EN
> CRISTWi, which I understand as referring to the incarnation, death
> and resurrection of Christ. So it's not that the Pauline concept of
> reconciliation is a continuous process, but that Paul described it
> as a continuous process in the past during Christ's incarnation.
>
> Does that happen clear up for you what imperfective aspect does?
> It's a category that has been made extremely complex in the grammar
> books, but it's a lot simpler than the book might suggest - or at
> least it should be. I'm a little worried that the length of this
> post is actually going to make things more confusing. Please, ask
> questions if you need something more.
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list