At 08:01 PM 7/31/97 +0000, you wrote:
<snip>
>
>***Please note: I am not saying Porter is right and Black is wrong.***
>All I am saying is that both these men are reputed to be linguists and
>both are writing on NT Greek grammar and both are talking about verb
>aspect but their use of terminology is not only different but seems to
>actually be contradictory.
For those who have done any work in the area of aspectual studies, it is a
well-known "fact" that for every two scholars there are three sets of
terminology! Terminology in this field is notoriously difficult because
some are approaching the topic from a more traditional base and attempting
to maintain traditional terminology used by biblical grammarians, whereas
someone like Porter is coming from a more linguistically oriented base, and
using more "universal" linguistic terminology. Actually, Black does make a
brief comment about this problem himself in his linguistics primer (I
forget the title). Not only this, but you have the problem of older
grammarians using Aktionsart in a broader sense than most modern
grammarians would, so you really have to assess the context of their
comments to work out what they really mean. So, you really have to take
each scholar and evaluate their terminology individually, since it is quite
possible in some cases for them to use the same terms to mean different
things.
I've not read the Black text you mentioned, so I cannot comment on his
approach, but I've also found that many grammars (even reltively modern
ones) are not very sophisticated or accurate when it comes to verbal
aspect. This is one of my spot checks--one of several--that I use to guage
the quality of a new grammar... I check what they have to say about aspect.
Just my humble thoughts on a complex problem...
M.
-----
Rev. Mark B. O'Brien Grad. Student, Dallas Theological Seminary
3909 Swiss Ave #1092 Adj. Prof., Dallas Christian College
Dallas, TX 75204
markus@upnaway.com
obrienmb@iName.com
obrienmb@hotmail.com