From: Rolf Furuli (furuli@online.no)
Date: Wed Jan 21 1998 - 08:06:11 EST
Clayton Bartholomew wrote:
<Rolf wrote:
<>>>>>>
<Given that aspect is subjective it has absolutely
<nothing to do with the nature of the action.
<>>>>>>
<But Rolf, this is a tautology. I am not going to give you your "given". It is
<precisely what I am contesting.
<Acts 8:17 is a case where the imperfect finite verbs are used to depict an
<action which in the objective situation would have been durative or iterative
<in nature. It seems rather harsh to assert that Luke's choice of the Imperfect
<here has "absolutely nothing to do with the nature of the action."
<My skepticism about aspect theory(s) grows with time. I was a true believer
<three years ago but the theory(s) has not stood the test of time. As I read
<the NT and the LXX I find lots of counter examples. Aspect theory(s) does not
<seem to hold up well against evidence.
Dear Clay,
I heartily agree that "aspect theory(s) does not seem to hold up well
against evidence". But these are theories which define aspect in Aktionsart
terms, and don`t define aspect as a subjective choice of the author. In
other words, when aspects are defined as parameters which tell us the
NATURE of the acts, a host of problems arise. In the Hebrew Bible there
are 470 verses which occur two times, thus serving as minimal pairs. In
these verses I found 74 verses where different verbs were used, in most of
the instances a perfect (perfective) was found in one verse and an
imperfect (imperfective) was found in the doublet. Yet exactly the same
situation was described! Some textual corruption can be postulated, but by
and large the same kind of action is portrayed either perfectively or
imperfectively. The primary parameter for the understanding of the nature
of the act is lexicon (Aktionsart), and aspect only makes visible the part
of the action which the author wants to convey. There are literally
hundreds of parallel clauses in the Hebrew Bible (parallelismus membrorum)
where one clause has the imperfective aspect and the other the perfective
one.
In Greek the choices are much more restricted, but the principle is the
same. Durative, frequentative and iterative Aktionsart can be described
both by a perfective or an imperfective verb (the imperfective being used
in most such cases)without changing the nature of the situation, while
semelfactive verbs such as BALLW and PIPTW are more restrictive. An
imperfect here would signal frequency or iterativity. Just as we
distinguish between the "word" and the "reference", we must distinguish
between "the (nature of the) act" and the "aspect" describing it. So just
as the "word" has nothing to do with the thing it denotes - the use of a
word for something is just a convention - similarly I adhere to my claim
that the choice of aspect has nothing to do with the nature of the action
(either in Acts 8:17 or elsewhere). But as already mentioned, the choices
of a Greek author can be severly restricted due to the circumstances.
Do you have any evidence which "aspect" defined by the following words (
where DISTANCE is the crucial factor) will not "hold up well against"?
"The imperfective aspect is a closeup view of the act or state where a
small sequence of details or a small sequence of the state is visible. This
sequence may include either the beginning or the end but not both. The
perfective aspect is a view of an act or a state from some distance where
details are not visible, but the act or state are seen as a whole, or a
great part of the act or the state, either including the beginning or the
end, is viewed as a whole."
Regards
Rolf
Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo
furuli@online.no
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