At 7:25 AM -0400 4/8/97, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>"The aorist views an action from the time of its completion. In most cases,
>the action is in the past, but it can also depict a future action, a present
>action, or an action not fixed in time, always viewing it from the time of
>its completion."
>
>I like the phrase "views an action from" as a way of explaining aspect. The
>perfect views a completed action from the time of the speaker or writer. The
>present views an action from the time of the action. The imperfect views a
>past action from the time of the action.
I think a better reflection of some strands of aspect theory would require
modifying Jonathan's definition slightly to eliminate any reference to
time. This can be accomplished by using 'complete' rather than 'completed'
or 'time of complition'. For example,
The aorist views an action as complete (as a whole). In most cases, the
action is in the past, but it can also depict a future action, a present
action, or an action not fixed in time, always viewing it as a whole rather
than as in progress.
Fanning uses a distinction between 'from the inside' (imperfective aspect)
and 'from the outside' (perfective aspect). I don't have his book with me,
but I believe I remember his persepective (maybe even from personal
conversation rather than the book), and I *think* he would reword
Jonathan's definition something like this:
The aorist views and action from the outside. In most cases, the action is
in the past, but it can also depict a future action, a present action, or
an action not fixed in time, always viewing it externally rather than as if
in the middle of the action.
Am I remembering Fanning correctly here? In any event, even if this is not
the way *Fanning* puts it, it does reflect what some strands of work on
aspect in general (not just Greek aspect) might say in light of the Greek
data.
Personally, I'm not quite sure what *I* think yet, although I do think
Mari's approach is more theoretically sound and actually fits the Greek
data better than the other works applying recent aspect theory to
Hellenistic (Biblical) Greek which I have read--though they have all made
valuable contributions.
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Micheal W. Palmer
Religion & Philosophy
Meredith College
mwpalmer@earthlink.net
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