*Most* texts are rather confusing when it comes to aspect. Fanning, Porter,
and Olsen use significantly different theories of aspect, and most NT
scholars know more about the linguistics of the 1800s than about modern
linguistics, since most of the really good books on Greek are based on the
older linguistics.
>On page 13-15 of Black's book he has a discussion of tense, aspect and
>time. On page 13, second paragraph he says: *The term aspect refers
>to the view of the action that the speaker chooses to present to the
>hearer.* This sounds at least fairly close to Porter's definition. But on
>page 14 Black has a chart that claims to show the relationship
>between aspect and time of action. The aspect column on this chart is
>labeled *kind of action*. I spent at least an hour tracking down his
>terminology and comparing it to Porter's. What we have here is a
>linguistic Tower of Babel.
It is easy to make this kind of mistake, and I have made it myself. Let's
compare Smyth to Fanning:
Fanning Past Present Future
------------------------------------------------------------
Imperfective imperfect present
Perfective aorist
Perfective pluperfect perfect
Unmarked future
Smyth (1920/1956) Past Present Future
--------------------------------------------------------------
Continued action imperfect present
Simple attainment aorist future
Completed action pluperfect perfect future perfect
with permanent result
These tables look very similar. The difference is that Fanning is talking
about aspect, and Smyth is talking about Aktionsart.
Jonathan
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Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
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