From: Don Wilkins (dwilkins@ucr.campus.mci.net)
Date: Sat Dec 12 1998 - 21:42:22 EST
At 09:04 PM 12/11/98 -0600, Roy Millhouse wrote:
>
>I was rather surprised by Don Wilkins' comments as well. First, the
>implication is that those involved in aspect studies are ignorant of
>Hebrew. If this is so, I find this to be a false assumption.
My point was that those deeply involved in *Greek* aspect studies could
profit by looking at aspect in Hebrew, where aspect plays a comparatively
stronger roll (particularly for tense questions), and the comparison might
give them a clearer view of aspect in Greek. You are correct in inferring
that I would not think most Greek students have also studied Hebrew, but I
freely concede that this may not be true. You seem to suggest that most or
all of those involved in Greek aspect studies are also students of Hebrew,
and of course you could be right.
Second, I
>think it begs the question of why aspect is studied in Greek. Does the
>Greek verbal system encode aspect? If so, how? These are questions
>familiarity with Hebrew cannot answer. Understanding how Hebrew encodes
>aspect may help us define aspect on a universal level (and we all know how
>a uniform definition is needed on that level!), but I don't think it does
>much to help our understanding of what is going on in Greek.
First, at least as I see it, Greek *does* encode aspect. A simple example is
the imperative mood, where one finds formal distinctions between the present
(continuous), aorist (non-continuous or simple), and perfect "tenses".
Similar distinctions apply to the other moods. I could say much more, but
this has already been discussed at great length. As to Hebrew/Greek aspect
comparison, I have no desire whatever to try to define aspect universally,
if by that you mean a kind of "unified theory" that we will thenceforth use
to redefine aspect in individual languages. That would be a mistake. Also I
did not mean nor say that Hebrew helps us understand Greek aspect in a sense
of true for Hebrew, true for Greek. What I meant was that a comparison of
the two languages reveals the relatively less significant role of aspect in
Greek, and can assist a fresh look at the latter.
>As far as aspect and English, I think Mari Olsen, if she's still on the
>list, might dispute that English does not encode aspect, considering she
>spent a chapter of her diss. to show that it does.
I have no dispute here and would welcome Mari's input in any case.
Don Wilkins
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