Verb aspect debate outside of Koine

[fhardison]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone was aware of any research/book on verbal aspect outside of Koine Greek. I.e. do classicists debate tense vs. aspect like is done with Koine and if so what have they written about it.

Thanks,

[Stephen Carlson]

No, there has not been a verbal aspect debate among classicists and some of them have looked in horror upon what some Koine scholars have been doing. For example, there is a scathing review of Porter by Ruijgh in French on this (Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 48, Fasc. 3, June 1995, pp. 352-366).

[mikeatnip]

No, there has not been a verbal aspect debate among classicists and some of them have looked in horror upon what some Koine scholars have been doing. For example, there is a scathing review of Porter by Ruijgh in French on this (Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 48, Fasc. 3, June 1995, pp. 352-366).

Mind giving those of us who cannot read French a couple sentence overview of that article? If you do not have time, that is okay.

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

All who hold to "tenseless" view are primarily NT scholars, not purely linguists or classicists. Porter has studied linguistics, but tries to be a jack of all trades. He's a real genius, I have to admit, but goes against the larger field of linguistics in this one. All the others are more or less his followers as far as I know.

[Stephen Carlson]

No, there has not been a verbal aspect debate among classicists and some of them have looked in horror upon what some Koine scholars have been doing. For example, there is a scathing review of Porter by Ruijgh in French on this (Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 48, Fasc. 3, June 1995, pp. 352-366).

Mind giving those of us who cannot read French a couple sentence overview of that article? If you do not have time, that is okay.

He’s basically saying it’s incompetent on nearly every aspect of Greek. Here’s my translation of the introduction:

On the one hand, the work of Mr. P., issued from a doctoral thesis, gives more than its title announces: it treats the use of the tenses and moods not only in the New Testament but in all of ancient Greek starting from the Homeric epic. A great part of the numerous books and articles figuring in the bibliography concern pre-Hellenistic Greek or ancient Greek in general. The usefulness of the work of Mr. P. consists above all in the references to these publications. On the other hand, the reading of this big book is disconcerting: his discussions are often chaotic and the philological interpretations of many passages are incorrect. Even the mistakes of Greek morphology are numerous. In addition, Mr. P. has often badly understood the thoughts of those he cites.

Following this are pages and pages of detailed criticisms.

[mikeatnip]

As the saying goes, "I have no horse in this race." I am interested in this topic because my limited Greek studies have been overwhelmingly Koine. I took it for granted that the verbal aspect debate has sort of settled in the last few decades and "tense" was a thing of the past when scholars sadly didn't know any better. I assumed that "aspect" projected back into classical Greek, even though I realize that languages change with time and Koine does not always ride shotgun with Classical.
Now, this is "unsettling" me. I am interested in hearing "the other side." Any recommendations for reading the dissenting view?

[James Spinti]

Not sure what you mean by "the other side," but the most comprehensive look is definitely the 650+ page book by Steve Runge and Chris Fresch, The Greek Verb Revisited, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016). You can find out more about it here: https://lexhampress.com/product/53614/t ... l-exegesis

Tense, aspect, and mood (TAM) are all part of what makes up a language's verbal system. How they interact varies by the language—and the point in time of a language. Some languages, like modern English, are heavily tense-based. Other languages, like classical and koine Greek are more aspect-based. But (and that but is hugely important), being more heavily aspect-based doesn't mean that tense and mood aren't important. The epsilon augment in the indicative mood throws the TAM balance toward tense—but note that mood is important here; the epsilon augment occurs in the indicative.

Hope that helps more than confuses : )

[mikeatnip]

Not sure what you mean by "the other side,"

By "the other side" I assumed that there are those who reject or at least downplay the trend towards "aspect" trumping "tense." I am a "newbie" to the arguments, but since the grammars that I used up-played aspect strongly and hinted that aspect had almost been ignored in older grammars, I assumed that the dissenting voices had all but disappeared.
If this issue is like many issues in life that get polarized, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

[mikeatnip]

I picked up a copy of The Greek Verb Revisited in Logos. It was a book I had in the back of my mind to buy one day, but now that "one day" has come. Now I just need time to read it.

[James Spinti]

Hope you enjoy it. Some of the contributors are active on this forum.

As for the older grammars downplaying/ignoring aspect, take a look at Mike Aubrey's blog: https://koine-greek.com/
He's done a lot of work in that area and basically the problem is that they didn't have the linguistic terminology that we have now. They were saying much the same thing (and they really knew their Greek), just "seeing dimly as through a mirror" so to speak.