Scott Lawson wrote:Mike thanks for your questions! I speak more English than I understand so I'll do my best to clarify my questions!
Thanks! Appreciate it.
Scott Lawson wrote:2.) My understanding is that with imperatives Aspect is involved and not Aktionsart. I know these two terms get mixed together so my perspective is Aktionsart is what A. T. Robertson would use.
When you say that, do you mean "what people say Robertson says about aktionsart" or "what Robertson himself actually says about aktionsart"? Unfortunately, that's a very important distinction to make. There's been quite a bit written over the past two and a half decades about Robertson and Aktionsart and much of it contradicts what he actually wrote in his grammar. This leaves me in the awkward place where I have to ask: "What do you think Robertson's conception of Aktionsart was?"
Scott Lawson wrote:3.) Here may be a good instance of Here is fine instance of speaking more English than I understand. Thanks! You've reminded me that both the present and aorist are imperfective. Right?
No, the present is imperfective. The aorist is perfective. I know its confusing. Personally, I'd prefer to drop the terms "present" and "aorist" entirely. Things get confusing really fast with both of them depending on what mood we're talking about.
Scott Lawson wrote:5.) In considering the aspectual force of a verb I understand that if there may be default choice for the tense used and if so no special significance can be attached to its use.
Such situations where there's, as you say, "no special significance can be attached to its use" tend to involve verbs that almost entirely appear in the aorist or almost entirely in the present. And typically, they have lexical semantics that are in someway inherently connected to aorist or present semantics. For example, in English verbs like "summit" (as in the sentence, "Sir Edmund Hillary summited Mount Everest") will nearly always be perfective (aoristic). This is simply because the act of summiting a mountain (<-- that -ing form is a participle, not a imperfective) cannot, itself, have any internal duration. You've either summited the mountain completely or you haven't done it at all. There's really no room for an in between. And internal duration is the basic definition of imperfective aspect. The verb in question here in Matt 3:2 appears to be split close enough to 50/50 on using either the aorist or the present that it's difficult to say one is more basic than the other. There are other tests for "default-ness" but they're also much, much more time consuming.
Scott Lawson wrote:Mike, thanks again for your questions and also for your indulgence!
That's what B-Greek is for!
Scott Lawson wrote:Mike, just to clarify, my first language was Gobbledygook and I've been told I spoke it right from the crib! I still revert to it often as I try to speak English.
You made me laugh out loud with that one.
