In Randall's chapter "Perfect Greek Morphology and Pedagogy" he writes:
(Apologies for the transliteration, I have the kindle version.)Plutarch’s account of the report of Pan’s death used the perfect because Pan had already died— he was not in the process of dying: Pan ho megas tethnēken “Pan the Great is dead!” (Plut., Peri tōn Ekleloipotōn Chrēstēriōn 17, [Def. orac. 419E]).
1. I understand that Randall holds that the imperfective aspect semantically encodes aspect and tense. But that Campbell understands the imperfective aspect to semantically encode aspect but not aktionstart, nor not tense. This would suggest that in Campbells view, the imperfective aspect or the perfect tense-form itself does not semantically encode the concept of a "process".
2. If I understand correctly, Randall appears to suggest that the problem with Campells position is that it incorrectly forces us to translate this example as something like "Pan the Great is in the process of dying". However Campell, as far as I am aware, doesn't argue that the imperfect semantically encodes tense or process does he? So I am not sure Campbells position requires this example to be interpreted as "Pan the Great is in the process of dying". My current understanding of Campbells position (which could be wrong), is that his position leads us to think that the speaker perceives themselves to be in, or is communicating with, a sense of heightened proximity to the event.[2]
I assume I am misunderstanding something, I wonder if someone could help clarify.
[1]: Runge, Steven E.; Fresch, Christopher J.. The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis (Kindle Locations 8863-8866). Lexham Press. Kindle Edition. [2]: Campbell, Con. Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek: