From: Rolf Furuli (furuli@online.no)
Date: Tue Apr 08 1997 - 11:54:37 EDT
Allow me another remark on the older grammars.
Mark wrote:
<I certainly don't mean to be seen as "bouncing" anyone by 
<my comments. Actually, my reading of Fanning suggests to me 
<that he has not so much proposed anything new, but has 
<rather done a good job of clarifying terminology and making 
<definitional distinctions that were not clear in many of 
<the older grammars.  In most respects, I think he has 
<pretty much done an excellent job of carefully stating what 
<is the traditional view of verbal aspect in the Greek 
<verbal system.
The difference between Fanning`s work and the older grammars 
is that he helps us to do necessary abstract thinking, while 
the grammars to a great degree prevent the reader from doing 
just that. Fanning`s principal contribution is that he 
differentiates between Aktionsart and aspect IN A SYSTEMATIC 
WAY. These words are also mentioned in the older grammars, 
but in their definitions of the aorist and the other 
conjugations only Aktionsart-terms are used.
Moulton III 59 says for instance: "essentially the tense in 
Greek expresses the kind of ACTION, not time, which the 
speaker has in view and the STATE of the subject, or, as the 
Germans say, the ASPECT. In short the tense-stems indicate 
the point of view from which the action or state is 
regarded. The word AKTIONSART (kind of action) has been 
taken over in all countries to express this essential idea. 
The chief kinds of action are: (1) continuous, which 
grammarians call linear, and (2) instantaneous, which they 
call punctiliar."
In none of the older grammars do I find a definition of 
aspect, i.e. abstract expressions covering all the uses of 
the imperfective and the perfective aspect respectively, 
only descriptions of the different kinds of aorists, 
presents and so forth. The need to know the very essence of 
aspect is not just academic, but such a knowledge may serve 
a very useful purpose, namely that of a controlling device 
(preventing ad hoc explanations). It is well and good to say 
that a particular aorist is gnomic, or that a present 
represent an extension from the past, but what does this 
mean and why? An understanding of the nature of aspect may 
be compared to strings on which the different forms of 
aorists and presents can be hanged. Only when we can 
pinpoint the meaning of a conjugation (tense) in a 
particular context because the perfective or imperfective 
aspect must have this function in the particular context, do 
we understand what aspect really is.
Jonatan wrote
<"The aorist views an action from the time of its 
<completion. In most cases, the action is in the past, but 
<it can also depict a future action, a present action, or an 
<action not fixed in time, always viewing it from the time 
<of its completion."
The question of whether or not the aorist indicates past 
time complicates the definition of aspect, but your words 
above may illustrate the need for abstractions,i.e. strings 
to hang things on. I don`t know if this is intentional or 
not, but there is a great difference between speaking of 
`completion` (=completed) and `complete`. What is completed 
has an intrinsic time value, it is past time relative some 
event, what is complete is time indifferent. So in our 
interpretation of particular aorists it makes a big 
difference whether our abstraction of the perfective aspect 
contain `complete` or `completed`.
Greetings
Rolf Furuli
Ph.D candidate in Semitic languages
University of Oslo
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