Layman's Guide to Verbal Aspect

A
Laymans Guide to Verbal Aspect

SBTS Alumni Academy Friday, January 13, 2017

Peter J. Gentry

The title for this talk, A Laymans Guide to Verbal Aspect, was given to me by
Dr. Robert Plummer, the organiser of our Academy. It was a not so subtle suggestion to
follow the KISS Method: Keep It Simple Stupid!
Discussion of this topic in Hellenistic Greek Grammar over the last fifty years is
confusing and difficult for many scholars, not to mention students of Scripture who do
not even pretend to live in ivory towers. We are in a fortunate situation today, however,
in that recent research has clarified the topic and the results of recent scholarship can
be communicated quite simply.
First we are concerned with verbs in New Testament Greekparts of speech
which convey activities, events, processes, and even states. An influential linguist by the
name of Vendler has classified verbs according to four categories: namely states, activi
ties, accomplishments, and achievements.1 These differ with respect to the properties of
stativity, durativity, and telicity (or boundedness), a telic situation being one with an
inherent terminal point. These classes describe the procedural characteristics of the
event expressed by the verb.

Class Stativity Durativity Telicity Examples
State + + love somebody, be
lieve something
Activity + run, push a cart
Accomplishment + + run a mile, draw a
circle
Achievement + find an object, win a
race

1 Zeno Vendler, Verbs and Times, The Philosophical Review 66 (1957): 14360.
SBTS Alumni Academy Lecture by Peter J. Gentry 08/05/2017 All Rights Reserved Page 1
Loving someone is not something marked by an endpoint, but it does occur over time
(durative) and does describe a situation or state of affairs. Running is an activity, not a
state. It occurs over time and is therefore durative. It need not describe a endpoint or
goal. Running a mile is an activity as opposed to a state. It describes something that
occurs over time but it also has an endpoint. Finding a lost ring is an activity, not a state.
There is no duration; it does not occur over time. But it does have an endpoint or goal.
These classes are called Aktionsarten by scholars because they describe the
temporal characteristics of a verb or verb constellation. By verb constellation I mean
the verb plus arguments or complements inherently required by the verb. The word
Aktionsart is a German word meaning the kind or sort of action. The kind of action is
determined by the lexeme or lexical nature of the word. The kind of action does not
classify states of affairs existing objectively in the real world, or conceptions of states of
affairs, but rather sets of temporal characteristics communicated by the verb constel
lation, i.e. the verb plus any arguments or complements that are obligatory.2
In contrast to Aktionsart, which is a lexical category, Aspect and Tense are
grammatical categories. Lexical meaning has to do with semantic meaning, while
grammatical meaning has to do with structural meaning in the language. Let me
illustrate this by the following sentence:

The fabothful woggles ugged diggles fabothfully.

What is the subject of this sentence? What is the verb? What part of speech is diggle?
What parts of speech are fabothful and fabothfully? This is an example of a sentence in
English that has grammatical meaning but no lexical meaning. No one knows what a
woggle or a diggle is; ugg is not a known action nor is the adjective fabothful or the
adverb fabothfully. There is no semantic meaning to these words. There is, however,
grammatical meaning. Some entity known as woggles have performed an action on

2 Christopher J. Thompson, What Is Aspect? in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical
Exegesis, eds. Steven E. Runge and Christopher J. Fresch (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2106), 49.
another entity known as diggles and this action is in past time. This sentence is com
plete in terms of grammatical meaning, but has no lexical meaning.
So unlike Aktionsart, Aspect and Tense are part of the grammatical meaning in a
clause and have to do with the way the speaker wishes to present the action in terms of
time. It is extremely important to grasp that language is an instrument or tool in the
mouth of the speaker. Both aspect and tense have to do with time and the way that the
speaker subjectively presents the action to the hearer or reader. They may have no
correlation to the real world because the person speaking may be lying or at least wants
the hearer or reader to see the actions in a particular way.
We will now define Aspect and Tense and show how they differ from Aktionsart.
Both Aspect and Tense are two different ways of attempting to describe our experience
of time as humans.
Aspect has to do with the Event Frame the speaker gives to the hearer. The event
frame is like a window that the speaker allows the hearer to look at the event. There are
two main ways of doing this, hence two main aspects: Perfective and Imperfective. The
terms I have just used have nothing to do with Perfect or Imperfect tenses.
First, Perfective aspect means that the speaker presents the action as a whole. A
hearer can see its beginning, its middle, its end all at the same time. It is like a snapshot
or global view of the whole. Perfective aspect means something happened, and I as the
speaker do not care to focus on any one part of the action. It just happened.
Second, Imperfective aspect means that the speaker presents the action as some
thing that is going on, or happening, or in progress. It like a video as opposed to a snap
shot. The Event Frame or window provided by the speaker is not large enough to see
when or where the action began, nor when or where it ends. The speaker only shows it
as something happening or going on, or in progress.
We can attempt to diagram these two options as follows:3

3 The diagrams on aspect and tense are from John Hewson, Tense and Aspect: Description and Theory,
in Tense and Aspect in IndoEuropean Languages: Theory, Typology, Diachrony (Current Issues in Linguis
tic Theory, 145; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997), 3, 6, 8.
Perfective |<x|

Imperfective |<x |

Perhaps the following diagram is better:4

Imperfective
Here the speaker allows the hearer to be situated in the middle of the process.

Perfective
Here the speaker allows the hearer to be situated outside the process, observing
it in its entirety.
Let me illustrate these two aspects using an example in English. When I say the
word hit, the hearer or reader thinks of something punctiliar or telic. A hit does not
have duration in time; it is instantaneous. Nonetheless, I can present this action as
Imperfective by saying, the boy kept hitting me. Conversely, when I say the word sing
the hearer or reader knows that singing always takes time. It is durative. One must sing
for at least two or three seconds to be singing. It is normally an activity and does not
have to be presented as an accomplishment or an achievement. So I can say, the great
tenor Andreas Bocelli sang the Messiah. If the hearer knows Handels Messiah and also
knows that the full version requires three hours, then they know that this event took
three hours. But the speaker has presented the entire action in one snapshot as a whole
without regard for the process or how long it took. This is taking a durative verb and
using Perfective aspect.
Now I want to contrast Aspect and Tense. Aspect has to do with Event Time,
while Tense has to do with Universe Time. Let me explain it in terms of human con

4 Christopher J. Thompson, What Is Aspect?, 22.
sciousness. Human consciousness of time is a bit like the film in an old movie projector.
We are conscious of three moments:

1. the immediate past (the omega field), recorded in the memory
2. the moment of immediate experience (0/0), being recorded by the senses
3. the immediate future (the alpha field), visualised in the imagination

<Direction of Film in Camera (Descending Time)

3 2 1 1 2 3
Direction of Film in Camera (Ascending Time) >

We employ metaphors for the future and the past. In English, the future is ahead and
the past is behind. In Hebrew, the future is behind and the past is ahead. The word for
future in Hebrew is , which means the part behind me. The Hebrew person moves

backwards into the future with his eyes fixed firmly on Gods great acts in the past. By
contrast, people in the English world face the future. These two approaches to Universe
Time can be diagrammed as follows:

1. Descending Time

Event Time
|<x|
Universe Time
<

2. Ascending Time

Event Time
|x>|
Universe Time
>

The Perfect in Greek

So far I have focused on Perfective and Imperfective Aspect and have not
mentioned the Greek Perfect. In terms of Aspect, the Greek Perfect combines the two
different types of Aspect, Perfective and Imperfective. Here the speaker portrays an
action as having happened and also has relevance for the present state or situation. It
may be that the speaker is focussing on the fact that from the present moment, the
action has happened, or is focussing on the resultant state. There is good reason to view
the Perfect as a verb form which combines Perfective and Imperfective. Morphologically
the marking the Perfect is also found in the old Athematic Aoristsgrammaticalising
Perfective aspect and the reduplication (with iota) grammaticalises Imperfective aspect
in the Present of the Athematic Conjugation. Thus the traditional view (i.e. before the
writings of Stanley Porter) that describes the Perfect as emphasising either an action
that is complete or an ongoing state resulting from the action is on target. In addition,
During the Classical and Koine periods of Greek, the Perfect is undergoing change so
that perhaps several stages can be recognised:5

Resultant State Current Relevance Past Perfective

There are instances in the New Testament where the Perfect may overlap with the
Aorist. This leads to the loss of the Perfect Verb Form in Greek.

Summary

Let us now summarise our present understanding. Verbal aspect is the sub
jective perspective or viewpoint from which an author communicates the action of
given verb. Tense deals with the time of the action: the moment of speaking, as opposed

5 Rutger J. Allan, Tense and Aspect in Classical Greek: Two Historical Developments; Augment and
Perfect, in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis, eds. Steven E. Runge and
Christopher J. Fresch (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2106), 102.
to either memory or imagination: present, past or future. Aktionsart deals with the type
of action based largely on contextual and lexical information.

Aspect Prominence

What is difficult for beginners of Greek to grasp is that unlike English, where
Tense is prominent, Greek is an Aspect prominent language. Authors are more con
cerned about describing an action as Perfective or Imperfective than emphasising the
Tense. Note how the morphology works. In the Imperative, Subjunctive, and Optative,
there are only three verb forms.

Imperative Subjunctive Optative
Perfective Aorist Aorist Aorist
Imperfective Present Present Present
Combination Perfect Perfect Perfect

The same is true for the Infinitive and Participle. This is because these verbforms have
only Aspect, no Tense. Only in the Indicative Mood or Modality do we have Tense

Perfective Imperfective Combination
Past Aorist Imperfect Pluperfect
Present Present Perfect
Future Future Future Perfect

The matrix allows for nine members of the set, but there are only seven. The problem
with this diagram is that we, as speakers of English, are looking at Greek from the point
of view of a Tense prominent language. Greek is an Aspect prominent language. Tense is
not so important in Greek. Instead of classifying Universe Time as Past, Present and
Future, Greek classifies Universe Time as either Past or Nonpast. Both Present and
Future are included in one category: Nonpast. Consider the following diagram:6

Perfective Imperfective Combinative
Infinitive
Participle
Imperative
Subjunctive
Optative
Indicative Past Non Past NonPast Past NonPast
Past
Aorist Future Imperfect Present Pluperfect Perfect

Rarely, a Future Perfect occurs. So only in Combinative aspect can one distinguish
Present and Future in NonPast.

Tense

The verbal forms in the indicative mood / modality are marked for both tense
and aspect. Fanning included tense in his system, but Porter and Campbell have
excluded it from the morphology of the verb in Greek. That is to say, they do not believe
the form of the verb is marked for tense, but rather that tense is a matter of contextual
factors. Rutger Allen and I have shown that Porters arguments concerning the augment
are flawed.7 The augment is a morpheme signalling past tense. So, for example, the Pre

6 Nicholas J. Ellis, AspectProminence, MorphoSyntax, and a CognitiveLinguistic Framework for the
Greek Verb, in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis, eds. Steven E. Runge and
7 Rutger J. Allan, Tense and Aspect in Classical Greek: Two Historical Developments; Augment and
Perfect, in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis, eds. Steven E. Runge and
Christopher J. Fresch (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2106), 81121 and Peter J. Gentry, The Function
of the Augment in Hellenistic Greek, in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis,
eds. Steven E. Runge and Christopher J. Fresch (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2106), 353378.
sent Indicative = Present Tense + Imperfective Aspect and the Aorist Indicative = Past
Tense + Perfective Aspect. Thus ancient Greek in both the Classical and Hellenistic
Periods has as many as six aspectual tenses: present, imperfect, aorist, future, perfect,
and pluperfect. The future perfect would mark future tense plus stative aspect. Thus the
Imperative, Subjunctive, and Optative, as well as the Infinitive and Participle, have no
tense or temporal reference whatsoever.
The traditional view is that the augment marks past time. This view is unac
ceptable to Porter. Strangely his position contradicts his own conviction that a dif
ference in form normally correlates with a difference in function. Why are there six
verbforms in the Indicative Mood and only three in the nonIndicative Moods? The
answer is simple: the forms in the Indicative mark both aspect and tense; outside of
the Indicative they mark only aspect. Since there are only three aspects, there are only
three verbforms outside of the Indicative.
Alternative theories are not convincing. Campbell argues that the augment is a
morpheme marking spatial reference.8 This is a possible proposal, but not a plausible
interpretation of the actual data. The early evidence for development of the future tense
and augment does not fit his ideas well.
Campbell also attempts to prove that the Aorist does not mark Past Tense by
providing examples where clearly past tense is not in view. His analysis is flawed. Just
because a small percentage of Aorist Forms are not used for past time does not prove it
is not a past tense. In English, we can say, I just wanted to borrow ten dollars from
you.9 This is an example of a past tense which has nothing to do with past time and
does not prove that the these forms do not mark past tense in English as a general rule.

Discourse Pragmatic Function

Porter in his book Idioms of the Greek New Testament describes three planes of
discourse in which the Perfective is used for background, the Imperfective is used for

8 Constantine R. Campbell, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 37.
9 Bernard Comrie, Tense CTL (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 19.
foreground, and the Combination or Stative as frontground.10 This is only partially right.
There is no particular prominence for the Stative aspect. There is only a default versus
marked binary opposition between Perfective and Imperfective. The Aorist is the de
fault in narrative. Using a line from Hallmark Greeting Cards, the Perfective is used
when you dont care enough to send the very best. The primary purpose in using the
aorist is simply to say that something happened in a chain of somethings. Imperfective
aspect, however, sets the stage for the action that follows. Conversely, what follows is
rooted in the state of affairs set up by the imperfective.11

Examples:

The first example is borrowed from the work of Nicholas Ellis.

a. Galatians 1:20
, .12
Now what I am writing to you, look, before God, that I am not lying.

b. Jeremiah 43:18 LXX

, .13
Jeremiah declared to me all these words, and I was transcribing them in a scroll.

10 Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament. Biblical Languages: Greek 2 (2nd ed.; Sheffield:
JSOT Press, 1992, 1994), 23.

11 Private communication, Randall Buth, SBL, New Orleans, 2009. This provided the argument demon
strating that most historical presents are perfective in nature, since the subsequent action is not rooted
in it, but simply follows sequentially. See S. Runge, The Verbal Aspect of the Historical Present Indicative
in Narrative, Paper presented at The Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, 2009.
12 Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft,
2012), Ga 1:20.
13 Septuaginta: With Morphology, electronic ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979), Je 43:17
19.

These two clauses, one from the New Testament and the other from the
Septuagint, demonstrate the contrast between past and nonpast in the imperfective
aspect. In Galatians 1:20, Paul highlights the importance of the statement that follows.
Since his note on his writing is taking place as he writes it, he uses the imperfective
aspect and nonpast reference tense. As such, there is no prefix augment on the verb the
agreement ending takes its nonpast form: (I am writing). In contrast, the verse
from the Septuagint consists of Jeremiahs scribe, Baruch, stating that he wrote down
the words of prophecy that Jeremiah spoke. Baruch is describing an event that took
place prior to the moment of speech and thus the verb appears in the past tense and has
the past tense prefix augment and the past tense agreement ending: (I was
writing, i.e. transcribing). Thus a basic binary exists within the imperfective indicative,
between past and nonpast.14
Rob Plummer, however, rightly warns against cases where analysis of the Aspect
should not be used as a foundation for a major grammatical point:

in Matthew 16:24 Jesus calls anyone who would follows him to deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow him ( [aorist]
[aorist] [present] ). In this example,
the verbs (deny) and (take up) convey specific actions
(note that occurs twice as an aorist imperative and never as a
present imperative, while occurs 22 times as an aorist imperative and only
four times as a present imperative). By contrast, is a verb of motion
(which are found almost exclusively as a present tenseform in the imperative),
occurring 16 times as a present imperative and only twice as an aorist
imperative. Or take Mark 2:11 as an example where Jesus tells the paralytic to

14 Nicholas J. Ellis, AspectProminence, MorphoSyntax, and a CognitiveLinguistic Framework for the
Greek Verb, in The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach for Biblical Exegesis, eds. Steven E. Runge and
get up, take your mat and go home (NIV; [present] [aorist]
[present] . Because and
are verbs of motion, they prefer the present tenseform (imperfective
aspect). , on the other hand, is a telic verb and thus prefers the aorist tense
form (perfective aspect).15
Examples from Luke 2:4149

41 .
42 , 43
,
, . 44

, 45 . 46

47
. 48
, , ;
. 49
; ; 50
. 51
.
. 52 [ ]
.16

Commentary

Verbs in non rankshifted clauses have been underlined. The default in carrying
the narrative forward is the Aorist Indicative. Use of the Imperfect Indicative is specially
motivated. The form (41) indicates the action is habitual: they would do
this every year. Verses 4243 contain four embedded sentences functioning as temporal
clauses. The clauses when he was twelve and when the days were finished are in

15 Andreas J. Kstenberger, Benjamin L. Merkle, and Robert L. Plummer, Going Deeper With New Testa
ment Greek: An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament (Nashville, TN: B&H
Academic, 1016), 240.
16 Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft,
2012), Lk 2:4052.
default mode. The clauses while they were going up and while they were returning
gives the reader an vivid presentation of the travel. The form (44) is incho-
ative, i.e. focusing on the beginning of the action: they began to seek. Why is
(47) Imperfective? As Jesus parents arrive at the Temple, Luke focuses on what is in
process. From a discourse pragmatic point of view, this may be the peak of the nar
rative. The form (51) indicates something that was going on in Marys mind
over and over again. Finally, the form is Imperfective because it emphasi
ses a process over time. Clearly, one must pause and ask, What motivates the use of the
Imperfective?

Historical Morphology and Processes of Grammaticalisation of Aspect

Definitions:

Aspect Aspect is concerned with the differing portrayals of an event, either seen
from without as a bounded whole (Perfective) or seen from within as an
unbounded process (Imperfective). Aspect, then, may be defined as the
relationship between an event and the frame within which it is portrayed
or viewed. If the event is seen as a whole within the frame of the viewer,
then it is perceived globally; conversely, if the boundaries of the event
(either its beginning or end) extend outside of the frame of the viewer,
then the event is perceived as an ongoing process. Aspect is generally
grammaticalised in the language.

Aktionsart Aktionsart is concerned with the procedural characteristics of the action
or event, e.g. durative vs. instantaneous or punctiliar, inceptive or in
gressive vs. terminative, progressive vs. nonprogressive, characteristic
or habitual, repeated vs. single. Aktionsart is generally lexicalised in the
language and is also a function of pragmatic effect as opposed to
grammaticalised semantic meaning.

5. Grammaticalisation of Aspect

Aspect may be grammaticalised by means of vowel gradation (apophony): e.g:
// // . Aspect may be grammaticalised by means of morphemes affixed
to verbal forms, e.g. sigma in the aorist.
Perhaps a proposal may be made concerning the process of grammaticalisation
of aspect in Greek. Note again the four categories of Aktionsarten developed by Vendler.

Class Stativity Durativity Telicity Examples
State + + love somebody, be
lieve something
Activity + run, push a cart
Accomplishment + + run a mile, draw a
circle
Achievement + find an object, win a
race

It seems that States and Achievements are handled by the Greek Perfect. On the
other side, Activities and Accomplishments were grammaticalised in the remainder of
the forms of verb by employing the morpheme sigma to portray something inherently
durative as Perfective, i.e. as an Accomplishment, while a combination of postradical y
formations and n formations were used to portray something inherently punctiliar as
Imperfective. This can be detailed as follows:
a. Changes made to durative stems for Perfective Aspect: regular verb
e.g ()

b. Changes made to punctiliar stems for Imperfect Aspect:
1) Non y formations
a) Root stems (i.e. present stem = form arising directly from the root)
1)) Thematic formations e.g. (cf. in nouns)
2)) Athematic formations e.g.
b) Stems with vowel gradation and reduplication
1)) Thematic:
2)) Athematic:
c) Addition of nasal infixes
1) : ()
2) : ()
3) Both and : ()
4) : ()
5) : ()
d) Reduplication and nasal infix
1) ()
e) Infixed /
1) used alone: ()
2) with reduplication: ()
[f) Infixed (from which likely derives the passive in + )
Examples: (), () ()]

2) Formations with suffixed (produces Imperfective Aspect)
1)) May be added to verbal roots which are inherently punctiliar to produce
imperfective aspect e.g. <
2)) May be added to nominal roots to make (denominative) verbs
e.g. < ()
3)) Morphology of particular formations cf.
a. Labial stems ( )
<
<
b. Voiceless velar and dental stems ( )
<
<
<
<
[more rarely voiced velar: < ]
c. Voiced velar and dental stems ( )
<
<
<
d. Liquid stems ( )
<
<
<
<
<
e. Nasal stems ()
<
<
<
<
f. Sibilant stems ()
< ()
g. Digamma stems ()
<
[ < ]
h. Vowel stems ( ) (use elongated stem vowel in nondurative stems)
<
<
<

7. Semantic note:

Since the suffix was heavily used for the forming of denominatives (i.e. for
making nouns and adjectives into verbs) many formations have a clear factitive
causative force and some became especially productive in that capacity. E.g.

make clear
equip with doors
provide with death i.e. put to death
count as just/right
regard with envy

make wise
make known

make black
make dry
make hot
make white

More research is required, but the proposal is that verbs having Second Aorists
are verbs where an Accomplishment was lexicalised and morphological processes were
required to create forms that are Imperfective in Aspect (i.e. the Greek Present). In the
other half of the instances, there are verbs where an Activity was lexicalised and gram
maticalisation of the Perfective was achieved by the sigma in the sigmatic Aorist.


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Laymans Guide to Verbal Aspect

The fabothful woggles ugged diggles fabothfully.

Resultant State Current Relevance Past Perfective

JSOT Press, 1992, 1994), 23.

Examples from Luke 2:4149

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