[B-Greek] XWRIS TELOYS vs. META TELOYS and EXEI TELOS

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Tue Sep 16 06:20:06 EDT 2008


Another thread discusses aktionsart vs. aspect terminology in
Moulton-Howard-Turner.
I would add a comment and then a substantive question.

Basic comment:
one should always read an author according to the terminology of their
time or of their choice.
That means that some early twentieth century English-writing Greek
grammarians used Aktionsart as a synonym for aspect, probably more
out of an attempt to appear 'learned'
(it was the age of Weltanshauung and Gemeinde in Theologie)
than precisely scientific, even if they claimed the opposite.
Enough already.

This did cause me to re-check terminology in Goodwin. He appears to
skip the terminology problem entirely, or rather to aggrevate it, by using
the old Greek inheritance of 'present' vs 'aorist'. But that is irrelevant to
my question.



Substantive question:

Goodwin says that the aorist indicative is without limitation of
"completion, continuance, repetition, etc., which belong to the other
past tenses."

Is it really true that the Greek aorist has no sense of COMPLETION?

In linguistic theory, a basic opposition perfective vs. imperfective does
carry a sense of completion. NB: viewing the "whole" event
necessarily includes an end point or a boundary point. It certainly
appears that the AORISTOS XRONOS and PARATATIKOS XRONOS
capture this perfective vs. imperfective distinction in the past tense.
One may say that the end-point is included within the viewpoint.
So-called ingressive aorists 'he became rich' EPLOYTHSE imply
crossing a boundary, crossing "the endpoint of not-being rich".

I find it more satisfactory to say that the aorist is
META TELOYS or EXEI TELOS (it has an endpoint)
and that the PARATATIKOS XRONOS (a.k.a. imperfect) is
XWRIS TELOYS (without an endpoint), OYK EXEI TELOS.

That is why I appreciate Rijksbaron's Syntax and
Semantic of the Verb in Classical Greek.
He calls a spade a spade. Aorist is a 'completed state of
affairs', 'indivisible whole'. He notes, significantly, that
PAYSAI παυσαι 'stop!' cannot be used with an aorist
participle complement.
Thus, *PAYSAI LALHSAS is not Greek, you can't stop something
that already has an endpoint and that is 'whole'.
But PAYSAI LALWN 'stop speaking' is correct.
(Kimmo may have something to add on the domain of aspect, though
that is an additional refinement.)

This is a nice rule-of-thumb proof on the aspectual side,
like *AYRION HLQE is a similar proof on the time side that
time is part of the indicative aorist.
(PS: omnitemporals 'the sun rises' are singularities that are
outside of the above dichotomies. Something like the way math
notation allows both 4.0 and  3.999...+, one can use either
aspect in some languages, including Greek.)

And the terms XWRIS TELOYS versus EXEI TELOS allow one to
describe these verbs in Greek from early stages of Greek learning,
within a first semester when taught primarily in Greek (90% time).

ERRWSQE
IWANHS

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life


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