From: CWestf5155@aol.com
Date: Tue Dec 19 2000 - 11:43:36 EST
In a message dated 12/19/2000 1:41:44 AM Mountain Standard Time,
kimmo@kaamas.kielikone.fi writes:
> Thanks, Cindy, for clarification. This is what I meant when I said that his
> view of aspect is too subjective. He calls the aorist perfective. If he
says
> that perfective does not say anything about the situation, if it is
> completely subjective and related only to grounding and perhaps other text
> linguistic matters, then here I must part company (this is how I understood
> his dissertation, please correct me if you think I understood him wrong). I
> know he is not the first to espouse such a view, but I prefer the
denotative
> view of the meaning of aspect. As a matter of fact, I have not heard of an
> aspect language where aspect does not regularly affect truth conditions (
> Vendler's classic illustrates this with English). Why would ancient Greek
> aspect be different? Would it still be aspect?
>
> I do appreciate his meticulous study, but some of his presuppositions and
> methodology I find unconvincing.
>
I see what you are saying. Forgive me if I'm getting it wrong, but your
objections seem to be drawn from Porter calling the Aorist 'background',
whereas others may refer to it as the 'backbone' of the discourse, in that,
for instance, it gives the main storyline of the discourse.
Actually, Porter also believes that the Aorist gives the main storyline of
the discourse, and that it does contribute truth propositions--in fact, he
describes it that way. This problem comes from a difference in the definition
of background--and I do believe that we may see some vocabulary shift (but
not an ideological shift) here at some point in the future.
Porter calls the aorist the default tense--it is used most often for the main
story line or for description. It is the 'unmarked' tense--what is normally
expected. That is what he means as background, and I actually would like to
stick to the word 'ground' rather than background, which are really two
different concepts. That is, you could tell a whole story in the aorist tense
and it would not be marked. The use of the aorist 'grounds' the other
tenses, so that when they occur in story telling, they stand out as forming
some function. Of course, you could tell a whole story in the present, but
that would be marked--emphatic. It is emphatic because it isn't the aorist.
If you told a whole story in one of the other tenses, it would be
stranger--unexpected--marked.
So the aorist will often form the storyline of a pericope. In that sense,
the aorist forms the backbone of the storyline. But at the discourse level,
you look for the ''point"/high level clause/ of the story in marked places.
Markedness goes far beyond the verbal system, so it could be marked by
occurrences other than a shift in tense.
At the discourse level (global), what some call the backbone or the figure
occurs in those marked places.
So, to summarize, in vocabulary, Porter has called ground or grounding
background and has called figure frontground--and then there is the middle
foreground. All of this describes markedness and grounding rather than the
literary concepts that most people associate with those terms.
Now with apologies to Mark, who I wrote off list, and anyone else who wants
to interact, I'll resume lurker status. I'm sure that no one will be
'satisfied' with this 'little' bit, but I do like to clarify when I can.
Cindy Westfall
PhD Student University of Surrey at Roehampton
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