Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Grammar questions which are not related to any specific text.
MAubrey
Posts: 1090
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by MAubrey »

Mitch Tulloch wrote: November 6th, 2017, 4:03 pm Also it was mentioned above that some ancient grammarians knew about aspect and how it was encoded in verbs. I would be interested in learning more about that, can someone provide a reference to an ancient grammatical manual that does this?
I have some unpublished notes here: https://koine-greek.com/studies-in-gree ... riography/
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by RandallButh »

Tulloch:
What's the consensus then here concerning the aspect of the perfect tense? Is it imperfective as Campbell suggests? Or stative? Or resultative??
There is consensus across the board that the perfect tense is not "imperfective". As Buist Fanning pointed out in the 2013 SBL panel in Baltimore, if someone 'drowned'(perfect) he has died, and τἐθνηκεν refers to someone who died, complete, dead, done-in, not to a situation of dying.

So the perfect includes a 'perfective' component, as a minimum, and it also includes some kind of continuation of that 'perfective' component, whether as 'stative' or 'resultative'. I am happy to call that continuation a feature of 'imperfectivity', but only within the larger context of being built on and including a perfective or complete-stative foundation. So in terms of abstract features, one may call the perfect {+perfective, +imperfective} but it is certainly not a simple "imperfective". (I reserve 'stative' for features of Aktionsart.)

Campbell's comments on the perfect will become a curious historical footnote in the near future on how scholars can propose things that are simply wrong. Anyone and everyone can do this, I'm not throwing rocks here and I have a lot of respect for Con as a person and as a scholar, it's just unfortunate to have such a view widely disseminated in beginning/introductory resources for students. This view is not isolated, joining the Porterite tense-less, 'remoteness' approach to the Greek verb, and I won't get started on "leaning towers of Pisa" in Hebrew studies. I recommend that students learn Greek without engaging such mistakes, that they learn linguistics without engaging such mistakes, and then later they will neither be attracted to nor intimidated by the rhetorical repartee in NT studies 1990-2020(?). (NB: I mentioned "NT studies", because absolute tenselessness is not an issue in general Greek and classical Greek studies. Like many things in life, illness often reveals prior weakness. The NT verb debates do not reflect Greek reality or Greek options, but they did reflect fairly widespread weakness in Greek and in linguistics among NT practitioners.)
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Mitch Tulloch wrote: November 6th, 2017, 4:03 pm What's the consensus then here concerning the aspect of the perfect tense? Is it imperfective as Campbell suggests? Or stative? Or resultative?? I just tried wading through "The Perfect in Ancient Greek" by Augustin Speyer and it sounds almost like the perfect tense in the Koine period is confusing because it was in a state of transition concerning how it should be used i.e. different authors used it in different ways at different times--and probably somewhat inconsistently I would guess...

Also it was mentioned above that some ancient grammarians knew about aspect and how it was encoded in verbs. I would be interested in learning more about that, can someone provide a reference to an ancient grammatical manual that does this?

Thanks!
--Mitch Tulloch
Interestingly enough, however, you see it fairly often in writers of later antiquity, i.e. Josephus, Plutarch, Lucian, etc. An interesting study might be to compare how these later authors use the perfect vs. Koine writers who are not self-consciously trying to Atticize, and actual Attic authors. I seem to recall it being used in Lucian with far greater frequency than I would expect.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Peter Streitenberger
Posts: 224
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 10:45 am

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

I consider the last statement of Randall to be a good and compact kind of definition of the force of the perfect:

"So the perfect includes a 'perfective' component, as a minimum, and it also includes some kind of continuation of that 'perfective' component, whether as 'stative' or 'resultative'. I am happy to call that continuation a feature of 'imperfectivity', but only within the larger context of being built on and including a perfective or complete-stative foundation"

Depending on the semantics of the used word there are always stresses more on this and then more on that side, an past event may be stressed more once (or sometimes completely, so that a relevance for the present time is hard to see), then the relevance to the present time may be stressed another time and I think this shift of stress is to determine by the time a writer was active, then what kind of verb (Stative or other kind of verbs) he used and context - as always - is king. Sometimes one side of the coin is almost vanished (see the example of Randall). A question to the English native speakers: isnt the english past perfect not to compare with the usage of the Greek perfect? E.g. I have visited Vienna - the writer was there once or more times and could still be there (this utterance could be done in Vienna) - so a combi of a past and present relevance is portrayed in the English tense as well, but I am not an English native speaker, only of interest for me. Maybe someone can draw conclusions or compare both, the Greek and the English. Would be beneficial, at least for me. Our German Perfect has almost lost its former distinction from the preterite tense, sad to say, and in the south here, the preterite is almost gone and vanished. So speakers are no longer interested in these fine ways of distinction. Peter
P.S. I also want to highlight that statement of Randall: "because absolute tenselessness is not an issue in general Greek and classical Greek studies". That is true and the death sentence of all the claims tense is not the main issue in the verbal system - it IS and always WAS the main issue. The other things are important, not to question that, but time and the different kinds of how time factors play together, that is it, what its all about. To see an aorist, preterite, future or what else comes into mind as timeless? How far away from any fact is that? So this debate the Porterian school has brought up, has brought up nothing, only a bad taste.
Peter Streitenberger
Posts: 224
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 10:45 am

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

To give a recommendation:
Crellin, R. 2016. The Syntax and Semantics of the Perfect Active in 
Literary Koine Greek. Publications of the Philological Society 47.
Wiley-Blackwell

I read that when it appeared in the academia.edu-edition, the print book I have not obtained, but should be the same content, something very interesting, if you want to have a Monographie. The perfect passive is not the big issue, so it is an important book, one should have read. Anyone has already, besides me? Peter
P.S. As I just see I have an essay by the author on the same issue, it is kind of abstract of the whole book. Please come into my treasury chamber: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rvocfg4oai35 ... k.pdf?dl=0
MAubrey
Posts: 1090
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by MAubrey »

I generally have preference for my own analysis of the perfect: https://www.academia.edu/9717384/The_Gr ... ce_Grammar

Crellin & I''s views are compatible, but we use vastly different terminology and approach the topic for different theoretical points, which makes comparing our work nearly impossible.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
MAubrey
Posts: 1090
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by MAubrey »

Peter Streitenberger wrote: November 6th, 2017, 3:54 pm Dear friends,
Mike said: "Peter, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but the ancient grammarians knew about aspect and knew that it is encoded on the verb".

I was, context should have made it clear, esp. referring to the perfect-imperfect distinction of Con Camp. as main theory of explaining the verbal system following Porter and that is something I have never found in ancient grammars, if you did, I would certainly be very open to read it. If I hear not otherwise I remain in the following: unknown, fancy, and causing sensation or better irritation of learners of Greek, not of any benefit, but a danger, insofar as folks are kept away of a normal and sound understanding of the Greek verb, read an ancient Grammar book of the Greek writers and you have something better - but doing this by myself is some years ago and I cant recall to have read any of these strange things written in the Today Porter School.

Yours Peter
My mistake, Peter. Thanks for clarifying.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by RandallButh »

Mike, thanks for posting your thesis. I probably have had it somewhere, but I downloaded a(nother) copy.

An aside: I appreciate that you transliterate phonemically. Any comment on why γράφειν 'grafen, λύειν 'lyen would be with /e/ instead of /i/? The shift of /ei/ to /i/ is often considered to be among the earliest shifts of the Great Greek Vowel Shift.
MAubrey
Posts: 1090
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by MAubrey »

RandallButh wrote: November 6th, 2017, 11:42 pm Any comment on why γράφειν 'grafen, λύειν 'lyen would be with /e/ instead of /i/? The shift of /ei/ to /i/ is often considered to be among the earliest shifts of the Great Greek Vowel Shift.
It's been so long, that I genuinely can't remember...
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Peter Streitenberger
Posts: 224
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 10:45 am

Re: Opinions about the book "Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek"

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

Dear Mike, reading thru your thesis I stumbled on that claim: "The Apocalypse of John, written by a non-native speaker provides more opportunity for finding ungrammatical clauses than most texts".
Having studied the Greek text of Revelation for some years I have to say, that your sentence is more than false. Sorry to say that. We could open a new threat on that, but I dont know if it is my duty to teach you otherwise, if your mind is already set, that John could not do the Greek. I know he did. There is no single verse, not to be explained, no verse is somehow ungrammatical, so I wont read your paper any longer, as this is too much for me. My paper on the Greek text of Revelation will soon appear, in German, but I claim exactly the opposite. Yours Peter P.S. I just decided not to debate with you an issue where fundamental differences are between us both and I see no sense as common ground is not to be expected - I could send you a verse by verse commentary on each Greek Verse of Rev. soon (in German, a pre pup if you will as well), I am about to end the project after some years of study (much research with TLG for almost each verse). So I dont debate with you on that. That ends my comment on your thesis.
Post Reply

Return to “Grammar Questions”