RE: Stative Verbs and Aspect

From: Rolf Furuli (furuli@online.no)
Date: Thu Jul 17 1997 - 09:59:00 EDT


I send this again,this time with heading and the last scripture reference
corrected.

Wes Williams wrote:

> I know that EIMI is stative, but I understand from Porter's definition
> of aspect that continuation (from the viewpoint of the speaker)*is*
> inherent in imperfective aspect. (I do not recall page number but it
> is early in his Idioms book when he justifies his category of
> "imperfective"). I inferred when I read it last year that this applied
> even if that verb is EIMI. I understand the above as saying that EIMI
> ( and by extension some forms of other stative verbs like GINOMAI,
> hUPARCW) cannot have imperfective aspect since it is a stative verb.
> If so, where can I look to find more information on this distinction?
> Thanks in advance.

Dear Wes,

My last posting had some hypothetical comments regarding EIMI in John 1.1,
which easily may be misunderstood. My point was that we cannot draw
sweeping conclusions from the ASPECT of EIMI, because a perfective aspect
could have been used with little difference in meaning. As examples two
translations of John in aspectual languages (biblical Hebrew and GeĢez)
with perfective forms of "to be" in this verse were referred to. So the
"being" of the Word is inferred from the stativity of the verb and not from
the aspect.

Regarding John 1:1, it could also have been argued that an aorist form of
EIMI does not exist, so John had no choice. And the reason for this is
that the state of being continued, and this was most naturally expressed by
the imperfective aspect in Greek. Regarding John 8:58 we should note that
neither in this case had John a choice, because there neither is a perfect
form of EIMI. Regarding Hebrew haya and GeĢez hallawa, they are different
>from EIMI because they stress "to exist" rather than "to be". But because
this is also the sense of EIMI in John 1:1 they are good examples of
existence expressed perfectively.

You quote Porter, whose description is good, and ask about aspect for states:
<par.2 ... The imperfective aspect (expressed by the present form), with
its <perspective of seeing progressive development of an action, was
apparently felt <to be compatible with continuing examination; hence its
frequent use in <description or exposition.

In this quote the words "its perspective of seeing" should be written with
capital letters and in red ink. Time and again in postings on the list the
subjective nature of aspect has been confused with the objective nature of
"progressive development" or "durativity" or the like. Aspect is not action
or state, but may be compared with the lense opening of a camera. Big
opening = a closeup view with details visible of a part of an event or a
state (imperfective aspect). Small opening = a view from some distance,
details not visible, usually including the whole event or state (perfective
aspect). The nature of the event or state is exclusively connected with the
lexical meaning of the verbs (Aktionsart) and by the combination of the
verb and its arguments (subject/object) and other words in the clause.
Aspect contributes nothing to the objective nature of the event or state
but is just the subjective viewpoint of the reporter, how he chooses to
portray the situation.

Events are heterogenous and they may be telic (build a house) or atelic
(walk in the garden), semelfactive (knock) and have many other
characteristics. A closeup view (imperfective aspect) of different parts of
an event will therefore make visible many different forms of action
(conative, inceptive, progressive etc), while a view from a distance
(perfective aspect) is not so varied but usually views the event as a
whole, beginning and end included.

But what about states? A part of a state is similar to any other part or to
the whole state. A closeup view of it (imperfective) may therefore reveal
the same as a view from a distance (perfective).This does not mean,
however, that there is no difference in the application of the aspects to
states. Fanning notes (p 137) that "the present aspect with STATES denotes
the CONTINUING EXISTENCE of the subject in the condition indicated by the
verb" and "the aorist aspect with STATES denotes most frequently the
ENTRANCE of the subject into the condition denoted by the verb."

If we apply this to the state zaw, which has some similarity with EIMI, we
find the inceptive meaning in Luke 15:32 and the inclusive meaning in Acts
26:5, both aorists. Only the context can reveal whether a perfective and an
imperfective aspect applied to states have similar or different meanings,
but the last is more likely. Applied to aspectually vague verbs of the same
class as EIMI (Porter, Aspect 449), which both have aorist and
imperfect,the meaning may be similar. (Incidentally GINIMAI may have a
stative meaning, see BAGD).

Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



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