Studies in Greek Language & Linguistics…
It is sort of taken as a given in grammars that the perfects in these two languages are different, but there is surprisingly little discussion of exactly what that means or how they are different.
Tense and aspect are central for narrative text. The perfective and imperfective aspect, particularly, are essential for how an author builds a narrative structure and signals to the reader the flow of the story.
Narrow negation, where scope of negation falls on an argument or adjunct rather than on the entire proposition can be marked by the syntactic position of the negator, as in John 12:9: καὶ ἦλθον οὐ διὰ τὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον, ἀλλʼ ἵνα καὶ τὸν Λάζαρον ἴδωσιν ὃν ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν. Another example is John 12:30, where the negator with... Continue Reading →
These are just some passing thoughts—nothing serious or revolutionary—on Bernard Comrie’s little monograph on aspect. 1. On the introduction From the perspective of what’s been said in Koine Greek grammar, two points could be made. The language about temporality and time with reference to the verbal system is problematic for those who have rejected the... Continue Reading →
We began by looking at a couple of quotes from Porter in the Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament on the history of the study of the Greek verbal system over the past two centuries. In those quotes, we saw that Porter makes a distinction between what he calls Aktionsart Theory and Aspect Theory.... Continue Reading →
