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Re: Aktionsart vs. Aspect

Don Wilkins wrote:

<Not having read Fanning myself, I will take the very presumptious 
<position of suggesting that you are misunderstanding him. If I 
<understand your citations of Fanning correctly, he is saying that in 
<a passage like Matt 4:11 the first verb represents the beginning of 
<the second action (i.e."came" is the beginning point of "were 
<ministering"), and from this viewpoint the inception of the second 
<action is *not* included in the imperfect--which would allow his 
<definition to stand. I don't know whether he would translate the 
<imperfect in Matt 4:11 using "began", but by this reasoning he should 
<not. If it is unavoidable for sensible Eng., then I gather he would 
<say that the "began" is coming from the first verb, not from the 
<imperfect.

Dear Don,

Regarding Fanning I would like to stress that I respect him and that 
he in a book of such high quality is contradicting himself is out of 
the question. Perhaps I misunderstand him. What is clear, however, is 
that he uses the definition of imperfectivity and perfectivity that is 
standard in the linguistic literature, and applies this to the Greek 
verbal system. This definition seems to fit most cases, but not all, 
and I reasoned that Fanning used it rather "roughly", because his task 
was to describe the empirical material in the NT rather than what was 
theoretical.

Regardless of the view of Fanning, we have the empirical material: 
several passages with an aorist followed by an imperfect. Your 
explanation above is of course possible, and would save the 
definition, but I think it is somewhat forced. It is difficult to see 
how the act "he sat down" is the beginning of "he began to teach/he 
was teaching" (Luke 5:3) and similarly in Matt 4:11.

Linguists sometimes speak of a third aspect - the neutral one (Cf 
Carlota Smith,1991, The Parameter of Aspect 119-, this was also once 
mentioned by Mari). While the perfective is thought to include both 
endpoints and the imperfective neither, the neutral aspect includes 
one endpoint, and may either be interpreted as open ("imperfective") 
or closed ("perfective") Smith gives a French example: "Jean chantera 
quand Marie entrera dans le bureau" It may either be interpreted as 
"Jean will be singing when Marie will enter the office" (open), or 
"Jean will begin to sing when Marie will enter the office." I cannot 
see how this neutral aspect may be applied to Greek, which has two (or 
three) grammaticalized aspects which are lacking in English and also 
in French. So I think - and this is what I want to discuss with the 
geeks - that Greek has only two aspects, one perfective and one 
imperfective, and to account for all the empirical material these are 
in need of a slight redefinition.

<I would certainly agree that we should not try to understand Greek 
<aspects through their translation into a target language. However, I 
<still think it is exaggeration to say that *nothing* in Eng. is like 
<Greek aspect. Your argument about "began" is interesting. I would say 
<that the use of this word to indicate an inceptive imperfect is a 
<curious example of lexical meaning being used to express grammatical 
<meaning. What you say about "began" being perfective is true of 
<course, but I think we ignore this "aspect" of the word and use it 
<simply to indicate--from a somewhat crude lexical perspective--the 
<grammatical inception which we are assigning to the imperfect. I.e., 
<the grammatical features of "began" itself are insignificant; it is 
<being used solely as a grammatical indicator, much as we use "will" 
<to indicate the Eng. future (probably because will = intent,
<which is futuristic).

I agree, except that I dont find the Greek aspects in English, only 
what is seen through them, to use the illustration of a lense. The 
combination of closed and open readings to express imperfective events 
in the past need not be strange. In Biblical Aramaic, which is 
strictly aspectual, perfect (perfective aspect) is used together with 
the participle to express ongoing action in the past, and the same is 
true of Syriac, which evolved from Aramaic but lost the aspects. Even 
Biblical Hebrew occationally use this construction, and it is very 
productive in Mishna Hebrew where aspect is completely lost.

Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Ph.D candidate in Semitic languages
University of Oslo