[b-greek] Re: Aorist never codes an open situation? - To Kimmo

From: Kimmo Huovila (kimmo@kaamas.kielikone.fi)
Date: Tue Dec 19 2000 - 03:21:10 EST


I am having technical problems with e-mail. I hope this makes it to the list.

Moon-Ryul Jung wrote:
>
> Dear Kimmo,
>
> In a recent discussion, there was some debate on the aspect of John 3:16.
> Here is a quote:
>
> > For example, here is a familiar phrase:
> >
> > John 3:16a
> >
> > hOUTWS GAR HGAPHSEN hO QEOS TON KOSMON.
> >
> > Does John mean by using the Aorist here that God's love
> > for the world should be viewed as complete or as a whole?
>
> You said:
> This expression of God's love in sending His Son can be viewed as a
> perfective whole.
>
> >
> > "Completion" is not even a characteristic of LOVE. How would
> > one view God's love as a "whole" ? What would that even mean?
>
> You said:
> Here it refers to an expression of God's love. Perfectivity and
> countability go together: what is countability with noun phrases is
> perfectivity with verb phrases.
>
> Logically speaking, "AN" expression of God's love (the fact that
> he loved the world) was sending his Son to the world. God's love
> was the basis of sending his Son. So, taking "God loved the world" to
> refer to AN expression of his love comes down to confusing
> the basis and the outcome.

They stand in a metonymical relationship. I do not think there is any
great confusion in the context. One could say 'on this occasion God
loved...'. Even in English the past tense does not imply that God ceased
to love.

Perhaps I could illustrate the aspectual point by rephrasing the point
changing the sense a little bit. "Would God ever love the world so much
as to give His Son?" - isn't that pretty perfective even in English
(note 'ever').

If this does not really address your concern, please try again. Perhaps
I did not quite understand your point.
>
> I understand your claim. "to love" itself is unbound like uncountable
> nouns. But uncountable nouns can be made countable as in "two coffees,
> please". Similarly verbs that are lexically open-ended can be made bound
> by the aorist coding. It seems to be a nice and systmetic explanation of
> aorist aspect.
>
> But this theory seems to go against my intuitive understanding of John
> 3:16. My understanding is: "God loved the world" is simply the past
> version of "God loves the world". The imperfect form of "
> God loves the world" does not seem to correspond to the
> simple assertion "God loves the world". The aorist form was used
> simply because the reference time interval for the assertion was
> past.

There would have been another option to use if the point was just a past
reference time: the imperfect HGAPA. But I feel that the imperfect
(imperfective) would be less natural here. God only once "so-loved" the
world that He gave His Son. That would make it countable, perfective,
bounded, and therefore the aorist is used over the imperfect.

>
> What would be evidences that are For your understanding and
> against my understanding ?

1) My view gives a motivated account for ingressive aorists, whereas a neutral aspect would not.
2) The lack of counter-evidence.
3) On the less conclusive side: my view makes a beautiful system of the Greek verb. It is linguistically plausible. (Less conclusive, because that does not mean that the other system could not occur in a language. However, I assume that it is more rare to have only the imperfective coded, and not the perfective. (Unless you want to say that the present stem does not code imperfectivity.)

There is a systemic opposition between aorist and present stems. Their distribution seems to be best explained by reference to aspect. In a language that forces one to use either stem (or perfect, but to keep it simple, I do not go into more detail) for most verbal expressions, if the distinction can be analyzed as aspectual most of the time, it is a good working hypothesis to go all the way unless there is counter-evidence.

By the way, on the more theoretical side, just like some linguists
differentiate between L-tense (language internal tense) from M-tense
(metalinguistic tense or absolute temporal reference), similar
distinctions can be argued for aspect. L & M tenses can be illustrated
by English "If I did so and so..." Temporal reference may be present
(M-tense), though L-tense is past.

Jouko Lindstedt in his dissertation argues (if I remember correctly)
that such a distinction between L- and M-aspects is relevant in the
Bulgarian language (though the terminology here may be different; it is
quite a while since I last time looked at his study. I just do not
remember how he phrased it).

I do not remember seeing convincing examples to really say that such a
distinction is relevant for KOINH. Fanning argues that the present used
for performatives is one, but even though performatives may be coded
with a perfective, I am not (at least now) convinced that imperfectives
(M-aspect) could not be used as well. So it seems to me that my version
does stand.

I am happy to hear of counter-examples, if there are, and then refine my
theory. At least so far John 3:16 does not seem to me to be against my
theory.

Mark Wilson wrote:
>
> Moon:
>
> You said:
>
> -----
> >I understand your claim. "to love" itself is unbound like uncountable
> >nouns. But uncountable nouns can be made countable as in "two coffees,
> >please". Similarly verbs that are lexically open-ended can be made bound
> >by the aorist coding. It seems to be a nice and systmetic explanation of
> >aorist aspect.
> ------
>
> Since this is to Kimmo, I thought I would ask some Verbal Aspect questions.
>
> Correct my thinking Kimmo:
>
> Moon has, to some extent, hit on the weakness of Porter's Verbal Aspect
> system, namely, LEXICAL ASPECT. The Aorist FORM encodes GRAMMATICAL ASPECT,
> but not LEXICAL ASPECT. Hence, you have a more complex issue here than just
> the Aorist aspect (Perfective Aspect).

Porter goes in my opinion too far in his distinction between aspect (my
grammatical aspect) and Aktionsart (my lexical aspect). He makes aspect too 'subjective' and Aktionsart too 'objective'. Grammatical aspect does indeed affect truth conditions regularly, and lexical aspects are linguistic codings of a situation, which need not have an exact correspondence to extralinguistic reality.
Lexical and grammatical aspect are both aspect. And here we are dealing with the interaction with the two. You
are right that here the question is more complex, if you mean that lexical aspect also needs to be analyzed. Fanning's study is good on this point, though from a different theoretical perspective from mine.

>
> This may also be relevant: Not only does John say that God "loved" but he
> also associates (joins) this act with the Aorist transitive verb EDWKEN (he
> gave). Since EDWKEN takes a Direct Object here, you have a telic aspect
> (i.e., there must be a specific time in which this act reaches a termination
> point) as well.
>
> It seems to me that the telic aspect of EDWKEN would naturally join with an
> Aorist form verb (perfective aspect). Since John has in mind some act in
> which God "gave," he would naturally (default ??) use a perfective aspect
> with AGAPAW.
>
> This may be a chicken and egg question, but which comes first here: Does
> John use the Aorist of AGAPAW "because" he plans on using the Aorist EDWKEN?

They are related, but not by way of grammatical attraction of the type
we see in relative pronouns. The aorist is used because God only once in
a perfective and telic sense loved the world in such a way as to give
His Son. In other words, the clause 'gave (perfectively) His Son'
defines or elaborates the word 'loved' (_hOUTWS_ HGAPHSEN, _hWSTE_...).

Let us experiment a little with different verbal forms to see their effect:
(1) HOUTWS HGAPESEN hO QEOS TON KOSMON hWSTE EDWKEN TON hUION AUTOU. (aorist, manner)
(2) TOSOUTON AGAPAi hO QEOS TON KOSMON hWSTE EDWKEN TON hUION AUTOU. (present, degree)
(3) TOSOUTON HGAPA hO QEOS TON KOSMON hWSTE EDWKEN TON hUION AUTOU. (imperfect, degree)
(4) TOSOUTON HGAPHSEN hO QEOS TON KOSMON hWSTE EDWKEN TON hUION AUTOU. (aorist, degree)

(1) Expresses the manner of God's love. Only once God loved the world in this manner that He gave His Son.
(2) Expresses the giving as a result of the love God has (imperfective). Therefore TOSOUTON would be a good adverb with the present stem: it is not manner but degree that is in focus with God's love here.
(3) is like (2), but with a different temporal reference. In some contexts this can imply that the situation has changed: God does not love the world anymore as much.
In (4) we have the degree interpretation made explicit. However, with a perfective verb, the implication is that God loved the world so much just this time, as if the giving exhausted God's love.
> My questions...
>
My answers...

Kimmo Huovila

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