[B-Greek] to ponder: Rijksbaron doesn't debate a 'paradigm change' on
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Tue May 24 05:07:56 EDT 2011
brian egrapse
> I saw Mike Aubrey hint at something similar, that it might actually
> be a virtue of Rijksbaron's book (and to clarify, the 2006 edition
> published by the University of Chicago Press, seems to be just a
> reprint of the 3rd edition copyrighted in 2002 with another publisher,
> J. C. Gieben; i.e., the "up-to-dateness" of ther material is 2002,
> though of course, this allows for full awareness of the purported
> "paradigm-changing" debate).
You may be interested to know that the 2006 printing includes the
addition of three bibliographic entries from 2003-2006. The 2002
edition also had Fanning 1990 in the Select bibliography, but no
mention of Porter. This was apparently a choice by the author.
> But I really disagree. It might be
> telling that Rijksbaron doesn't even mention the debate, perhaps
> reflecting that such a distinguished scholar/work doesn't think the
> challenge to the traditional understanding is to be taken seriously.
That would probably be a correct reading, though obviously not
explicit. There is an interesting footnote on page 3:
"... The relationship between aspect and Aktionsart is discussed
extensively in Lyons (1977:705ff.). For Greek, Fanning (1990) is
particularly useful, expecially Ch. 3 'The effect of inherent meaning
and other elements on aspectual function'. In Rijksbaron (1989) I
have presented a typology of verb meaning which in a number of
respects resembles that of Fanning."
As mentioned previously, this is where students interests should be
focused. Get the right stuff down first, then consider aberrancies
with those interested. Get the Greek right, get the linguistics right.
Starting with the aberrancies will only lead to confused students.
> But it would still be nice if he had addressed it.
He does discuss tense vs aspect terminology in two footnotes on
pages 2-3. but he does not exlicitly mention that there are a few
non-classicists who think that Greek was 'aspect-only'.
Why should he clutter up the Greek verb with a non-issue among
classicists? Is this a subliminal message: "Let them learn Greek!"?
[[If they do not believe the augment and imperfect,
they will not be persuaded even if the 'historical present' is shown to
be an ironic aspect. (B-D-Funk, 1961, $321: "The historical present
can replace the aorist indicative ... the Aktsionart [sic, i.e. 'aspect'
-RB] usually remains punctiliar [i.e. 'perfective'-RB] in spite of the
present tense form.)]]
Something similar may be seen in Hebrew works. Standard reference
grammars discuss the development of the sequential verbs. Jouon-
Muraoka footnotes the lack of vocalization distinction in Origen's
secunda. However, people who have not believed that sequential
verbs existed are not footnoted (as far as I know--I don't have the
most recent edition). It is considered a non-tenable position.
> Not that he would
> have to address it throughout the book. But it would have been
> nice if he had treated the debate at some point, perhaps in an
> appendix, laying out the aspect only view some have put forth and
> why it is not tenable.
Debate? One side is untenable. Rijksbaron's footnote does allude
to this: "In general, this opinion is untenable. For one thing, an
important function of, for instance, the imperfect and aorist
indicative in temporal clauses is neglected ..." [Obviously, one needs
to read the chapters and sections dealing with these in order to
unpack the statement.--RB]
Sometimes the best way to put out the darkness is to light a candle.
ERRWSQE
IWANHS
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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