[B-Greek] An Accessible Brief Introduction to Greek Verbal Aspect

Brian Abasciano bvabasciano at gmail.com
Thu May 12 13:10:19 EDT 2011


Randall,

Please understand that I was not recommending the article as giving the correct view of Greek and verbal aspect, etc. (I mentioned that I do not agree with the aspect only/Porter view, which the author ascribes to). The article is largely descriptive. And does he not represent the "aspect only"/Porter view accurately? In other words, you say it is not a reliable guide to what linguists think, but is it not a reliable guide to what a certain group of scholars in some sort of basic agreement with Porter think? I think lots of Greek students have heard of the debate but don't know much about it, particularly the "aspect only" view. He also does indicate that there are other views and gives their basic stance, although you helpfully pointed out that his characterization of the majority view before the 19th century was inaccurate. But does he not accurately represent the aspect only/Porter view? But I guess the article does not indicate very clearly that some of its basic descriptions are from that perspective and would not command agreement from other viewpoints. So perhaps it was not a good recommendation. But with that caveat, is it not a good recommendation for an accessible introduction to the aspect only/Porterite view of the issues, including its view of the debate itself and how it is to be framed? It would be interesting if someone from the aspect only view commented to say if they think the article is good for that. (I noticed Rod Dekker was listed as having read and given feedback on a preliminary draft of the article.)

Thanks for pointing out problems with the article.

By the way, you approvingly mentioned in one of your other posts Steve Runge's new book, Discourse Grammar of the GNT. Let me add that he has a series of posts at his website critiquing Porter's views. Perhaps you will appreciate a link to that more: http://www.ntdiscourse.org/on-porter-prominence-and-aspect/ .

God bless,

Brian Abasciano  


*****************

Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 00:02:33 +0300
From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] An Accessible Brief Introduction to Greek Verbal
Aspect
To: B Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <BANLkTiko_oz8aOepfdKUs=oczpDLTS_ZXQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I found the PDF to be unreliable and a caricature of what linguists think
about Greek, or aspect, or actionsart, or tense. It is not the place
to send a student to understand the Greek verb.

My two lepta.


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