From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Tue Jan 20 1998 - 10:28:42 EST
At 11:00 AM 1/19/98 +0000, clayton stirling bartholomew wrote:
>Stanly Porter (Idioms, 2nd ed., pp. 28f) says that the Imperfective *aspect*
>indicates only the subjective choice of the author about how to represent the
>action. I have a problem with this. It seems to me that in this case the
>Imperfect from is used to describe an objective situation where the action
was
>proceeding. There were not enough apostles to lay hands on all of them at one
>time so using the Imperfect was Luke's way of depicting the objective
situation.
The objective situation: They were baptizing people, one after another.
The subjective choice: This could have been conveyed from the outside, with
the completion in view, as a simple aorist; this would not have noted that
this was one or another, merely that the people had been baptized. But
there is a choice involved in determining which features of the objective
situation should be directly portrayed.
>My skepticism about aspect theory(s) grows with time. I was a true believer
>three years ago but the theory(s) has not stood the test of time. As I read
>the NT and the LXX I find lots of counter examples. Aspect theory(s) does not
>seem to hold up well against evidence.
This is probably much too broad a statement to defend or discuss
profitably...for the record, I've been convinced that Mari Olsen's
treatment of aspect provides a useful, coherent theory which does account
for the data nicely.
Jonathan
jonathan@texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no
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