From: CWestf5155@aol.com
Date: Mon Aug 28 2000 - 16:10:12 EDT
n a message dated 08/28/2000 1:50:31 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
ButhFam@compuserve.com writes:
<<
>Some issues that I have with Wallace/Fanning can be illustrated with just
one
>example: the Gnomic. Wallace lists the Gnomic as a category for the
Present,
>Imperfect, Aorist, Future and Perfect. The question is: why did a natural
>language user select or prefer any one of these tenses for the Gnomic in a
>given situation, or indeed, why would the language convey the Gnomic in
all
>tenses. All they have done is describe the fact that all of these tenses
>appear in gnomic semantic contexts.
"Why?" is a good question.
One answer is that 'gnomic' is a very abstract animal. I would expect
'gnomic' to present systemic jumps by its very nature, similarly to the way
a compass works around the north or south pole.
At the north pole EVERY direction is 'south'. At the gnomic pole any tense
might touch. The choice of any Greek tense at the gnomic pole might relate
to things other than measured by the compass (position of the moon,
weather, health, sun, sunspots, something not normally used for calculating
direction when walking in forest.)
Said another way around, gnomic is not a good place to be organizing a verb
system, probably in any language. (The same is notoriously true of 'being'
verbs across languages.) As regards a Greek debate, gnomic can be brought
in at the end and will be able to fit. >>
Randall,
I'm going to do a hit and run (post and run?) response, because to be a good
contributor, I would need to spend a lot of time that I'm trying to ration.
While aspect has something to do with my area of focus, I don't want it to
dominate my participation. Sometimes it feels like jumping into a bottomless
pit when I get involved in the aspect discussions.
But briefly, I picked Gnomic as a category because it was listed as a
category in virtually every tense, but I could have mentioned Iterative,
Progressive, Perfective, Iterative, Future or Conative--any of the categories
that are shared between say the Present and the Perfect/Aorist/Imperfect.
I find the charge that the semantics of lexis and context are transported
into the meaning of tense in these cases very convincing. How do you know
that a present/future/aorist/imperfect/perfect/future is gnomic? Because of
the formal tense markers? Obviously not. You know it is Gnomic because of
context. So what does the formal tense marker(s) contribute to the meaning?
If all you can say is that a given verb is a Gnomic Aorist, you have said
nothing at all about what the tense has contributed to the meaning, you have
only described what you have derived from the context.
I'm not trying to build a system on the Gnomic, but a system should be able
to account for these occurances and be able to determine what the tense
contributes semantically.
<< By the way, everyone has appreciated Porter's contributions even if they
don't buy the absolute system.
That is the way good scholarship works. >>
Yes, and Stan would agree with this statement about scholarship
wholeheartedly.
If he stimulates discussion, I think he feels that he's done his job. And
discussions on aspect and the integration of some consideration of aspect
into so many systems probably can be credited to Porter and Fanning.
As far as the issue being settled or closed, I think that your reports on the
demise of Porter's system are grossly exaggerated. The system appears to be
more alive and well now than ever before, if I go by the discussion it
genders.
One reason that the acceptance of the system flounders in some people's mind
is that it is based on a complex linguistics system, which really has to be
assimilated to fully appreciate his argument (I know that you know this
Randall, I'm just including it for anyone else who may be hanging in reading
this).
I respect the fact that you don't buy the total package, but you do buy the
fact that aspect plays a role. And both Fanning and Porter had rebuttals for
each other--I found Porter's rebuttal of Fanning more convincing than
Fanning's rebuttal--and I think that Carson's analysis of the two rebuttals
mentioned earlier agreed more with Porter. I know that others that are more
impartial than I did not have the impression that Fanning won the day.
I'll read any response with full attention and respect, but I intend to make
one more reply to Clayton and then keep quiet for awhile.
Cindy Westfall
PhD Student, Roehampton
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