Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament

129 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament FRANCIS G. H. PANG This study examines the treatment of the Future tense among the major contributions in the discussion of verbal aspect in the Greek of the New Testament. It provides a brief comparative summary of the major works in the past fifty years, focusing on the distinction between aspect and Aktionsart on the one hand, and the kind of logical reasoning used by each proposal on the other. It shows that the neutrality of the method is best expressed in an abductive approach and points out the need of clarifying the nature and the role of Aktionsart in aspect studies. Keywords: Verbal Aspect, Aktionsart, Abductive Reasoning, Future Tense. 1. Introduction The world of scholarship concerning the Greek verbal system experienced a paradigm shift in the late 1980s. Since the publication of Porter’s Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament in 19891 and Fanning’s Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek a year later2, there has been a change of direction in the discussion of the function of the Greek tense-forms from time and Aktionsart to aspect3. Since then, many have followed with their contributions of a new model of verbal system4 1 S.E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood (Studies in Biblical Greek 1; New York 1989). 2 B. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford 1990). 3 This is not to say that there is no work on the topic before Porter and Fanning. Juan Mateos and Kenneth L. McKay are considered by Porter and Pitts to be the forerunner in aspect theory on NT Greek. J. Mateos, El Aspecto Verbal en el Nyevi Testamento (Madrid 1977), K.L. McKay Greek Grammar for Students: A Concise Grammar of Classical Attic with Special Reference to Aspect in the Verb (Canberra 1981). See S.E. Porter and A.W. Pitts, “New Testament Greek Languages and Linguistics in Recent Research”, Currents in Biblical Research 6.2 (2008) 216-217. 4 For example, monograph length works in English include the works of M.B. Olsen, A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics; New York 1997), R. Decker, Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark in Light of Verbal Aspect (Studies in Biblical Greek 10; New York 2001), T.V. Evans, Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch: Natural Greek Usage and Filología Neotestamentaria - Vol. XXIII - 2010, pp. 129-159 Facultad de Filosofía y Letras - Universidad de Córdoba (España) 130 Francis G. H. Pang and meanwhile the discussion of aspect has grown in biblical studies5. Although not all of the contributors agree in every detail, these works signal an increase of awareness in this important category. Whereas most of the contributions after the work of Porter and Fanning focus on construction of new theories, much is needed in terms of testing and applying the existing models using data from the New Testament6. Although quite obviously the debate among grammarians on the issue of the Greek verbal system is less likely to end soon, the work to be done for the practitioners is also pertinent if not more urgent. Questions such as how idiolect and style affect aspectual choice and how genre and register affect the use of particular aspect are particularly helpful for the refinement of individual theory7. However, there is some necessary groundwork that needs to be done so that a comparative analysis of various models becomes meaningful and feasible. It is necessary to present various proposals in a comparable and systematic manner in Hebrew Interference (New York 2001), C.R. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, the Indication Mood and Narrative: Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament (Studies in Biblical Greek 13; New York 2007), C.R. Campbell Verbal Aspect and Non-Inductive Verbs: Further Soundings in the Greek of New Testament (Studies in Biblical Greek 15; New York 2008) and the discussion in the first half of S.E. Porter and D.A. Carson, Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics, (JSNTSS, 80; Sheffield 1993) 18-82 and R. Picirilli, “The Meaning of the Tenses”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 (2005) 533-55. One can also find the discussion of aspect in recent grammar (although they may not agree in every aspect), Young calls his application of verbal aspect theory to his grammar a “working hypothesis” in his intermediate grammar, R.A. Young, Intermediate New Testament Greek: A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach (Nashville, TN 1994) 105-131, particularly 105-7; S.E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (Sheffield 21994) 20-61; and to a lesser extent, W.D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek (Grand Rapids, MI 22003) 126 and D. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI 1997) 499-512. See also D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids, MI 1996) 65-77. 5 See, for example, the work of D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, MI 1991); R.H. Gundry, Mark (Grand Rapids, MI 1994); D.J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI 1996); and D.E. Aune, Revelation (WBC 52A-C; Nashville, TN 1997-8). Also forthcoming are the new commentary of Carson on the Johannine epistles (NIGTC) and Porter’s commentary on Romans (New Biblical Commentary), both of which will incorporate verbal aspect theory in their discussion. See the detailed list in A. Naselli, “Introduction to Verbal Aspect”, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 12 (2007) 28 esp. 30-31. 6 Those who review the state of the discussion in recent years share the same sentiment. For example, Picrilli contends that when talking about the Greek verb tenses, most grammarians have been looking at the uses on the whole but neglect on the parts as a way to testing the basic theory. R. Picirilli, “The meaning of the Tenses,” 555 and for similar vision, T.V. Evans, “Future Directions for Aspect Studies in Ancient Greek”, Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography. Essays in Honor of Frederick W. Danker (eds. B.A. TAYLOR, ET AL.) (Grand Rapids, MI 2004) 206. 7 The work of Decker is a good example of how this practitioner’s approach to verbal aspect could be done. Decker, Temporal Deixis. Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 131 order to facilitate such a comparison. This study is an attempt to bring the discussion of the Future in the Greek verbal network up-to-date by summarizing the views of the major contributors, defining terms and possibly untangling the misunderstandings among various contributors8. This study starts with a brief review of the history of research in Greek verbal aspect. The major views of the debate will be identified and terms will be defined. Particular attention is given to how different proposals distinguish aspect and Aktionsart. It will then focus on how the Future tense-form is evaluated in various models. This section begins with a brief summary of the current proposals of the possible origin and development of the Greek Future tense-form. It is followed by a discussion of how various parties describe the nature of the Future, particularly their view on how it encodes aspect. A distinction is made between three kinds of logical reasoning: induction, deduction, and abduction. It is argued that the abductive approach is the preferred method for determining the aspect of the Future tense. The paper concludes with a summary of findings and suggestion for further research. 2. Verbal Aspect Theory: Definition, History and Development Discussions about the debate of Greek verbal aspect are ample9. It is thus necessary for this study neither to recount a detailed history of the Porter/Fanning debate nor to rehearse the arguments from all parties. Instead, what must to be done is a comparative summary of the development of various models, singling out the things that are relevant to the discussion of the function of the Future. But before going into the discussion of aspect in various proposals, definition of several terms is necessary. 8 It is necessary to be clear about terms that signify the form and the function of the form. Here in this paper, “tense-form” refers to the verb’s morphology whereas “tense” refers to the traditional understanding of the function of the tense form, the time of the action. This paper follows the convention of Porter of capitalizing the formal terms, e.g. Future, Present Indicative, Subjunctive, and using lower case for functional categories, e.g. perfective, future and past time, attitude, etc. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 12. 9 For example, see D.A. Carson, “An Introduction to the Porter/Fanning Debate”, Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research. (eds. S.E. PORTER – D.A. CARSON) (JSNTSS 80; Sheffield 1993) 18-25; Decker, Temporal Deixis, 5-28; S.E. Porter, “Greek Grammar and Syntax”, The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research. (eds. S. MCKNIGHT – G.R. OSBORNE) (Grand Rapids, MI 2004) 89-92; Picirilli, “The Meaning of the Tenses”, 535-41; Naselli, “Introduction to Verbal Aspect”, 17-24 and Porter and Pitts, “Recent Research”, 215-22. 132 Francis G. H. Pang Aspect can be loosely defined as a viewpoint feature10, expressing a speaker’s subjective portrayal of an action. In order to engage in meaningful discussion about verbal aspect, one must distinguish between semantics and pragmatics. Semantics refers to the meaning expressed by the form alone as part of a language system, that is, meaning apart from context. Pragmatics refers to the meaning in a specific context, which has to do with “linguistic performance and implicature, which will vary depending on lexical, stylistic, grammatical and deictic interactions”11. Aspect is encoded in and expressed by the tense-form alone and thus is a matter of semantics. To borrow Porter’s wordings, aspect can be formally defined as: [A] synthetic semantic category (realized in the forms of verbs) used of meaningful oppositions in a network of tense systems to grammaticalize the author’s reasoned subjective choice of conception of a process12. Before this semantic category became the key focus in the discussion of the Greek verbal system, temporal reference and Aktionsart used to dominate the discussion13. For the past century, the prevailing view 10 Evans, “Future Directions,” 200; cf. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 88, 107 and Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 84-85. 11 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 24. In contrast, Evans suggests that it is possible to grammaticalize Aktionsart. He claims that stativity is an Aktionsart instead of an aspect. Mixing it with the lexical and grammatical stativity, he concludes that the Perfect should be treated as a special case of imperfective aspect instead of a third aspect (stative). Similarly, Olsen argues that certain kind of Aktionsart can be marked to certain class of verbs by adding prefix. See the discussion on the aspect of the Future below. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 20-32 and Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 208. 12 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 88, 107. Fanning’s definition is of similar essence, for him verbal aspect is a “category in the grammar of the verb which reflects the focus or viewpoint of the speaker in regard to the action or condition which the verb describes. It shows the perspective from which the occurrence is regarded or the portrayal of the occurrence apart from the actual or perceived nature of the situation itself”. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 84-5. 13 For a concise summary of the traditional explanation of the function of the tense-form, see Decker, Temporal Deixis, 5-11. Detailed history can be found in Porter, Verbal Aspect, 17-65. Briefly put, the tense-forms are described almost exclusively in terms of temporal reference in late nineteenth-century Koine Grammars (like for example Winer, Buttmann). It is G. Curtius who introduces Zeitart, and later called Aktionsart, to the discussion of the meaning of the Greek verb and later adopted by other grammarians (Brugmann, Burton, Moulton and Robertson for example, although they did not use the exact terminology to refer to Aktionsart). Although some grammarians’ description of various Aktionsarten seems to resemble what one would categorize as aspect in the twentieth century, much of the discussion is dominated by Aktionsart language. For example, Robertson’s classification of three Aktionsarten: punctiliar, durative and perfected state is very similar to the perfective, imperfective and stative aspects referred in the discussion of verbal aspect today. See A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (NY 31919) 830-910 and Porter, Idioms, 20-61. Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 133 was that the primary meaning of the tense-forms was Aktionsart with secondary implications for time14. This traditional understanding of the function of tense-forms often became an obstacle and a point of contention in the discussion of Greek verbal aspect theory. To make matters worse, Aktionsart, literally the kind of action, is a term long confused with aspect and has sometimes been used interchangeably in some grammars15. Bache’s work is credited as the first to make a semantic distinction between aspect and Aktionsart16. Some grammarians see Aktionsart as a lexically expressed feature and prefer to use a different label. Olsen prefers to use the term ‘lexical aspect’ to describe the nature of aspect while Fanning uses ‘procedural characteristics’ to refer to the ways in which verbs behave in different settings. However, no matter what terminology is used, Aktionsart concerns the type or quality of an action, the nature of the internal temporal constituency17. It is a theory that attempts to characterize actions as they objectively took place18. In other words, whereas aspect indicates the speaker’s subjective viewpoint of an action, Aktionsart concerns its objective nature. Unlike aspect, which is a semantic category, Aktionsart is generally regarded as a pragmatic category19. Although the aspect and Aktionsart of a word sometimes may have complementary or even overlapping descriptions, they are expressed differently: aspect is expressed grammatically whereas Aktionsart is expressed lexically and contextually20. Thus when considering linguistics it is most helpful to discuss the meaning of a Greek verb in terms of both semantics and pragmatics categories. Notice that, in Porter’s definition of aspect, two features are stressed: (1) Aspectuality is treated as a semantic category; and (2) the Greek verbal structure is described as systemic. Following Hallidayan systemic 14 Absolutely in the Indicative and relatively in Participles. Picirilli, “The Meaning of the Tenses”, 533. 15 For instance, refer to the discussion of Robertson’s Aktionsarten and Porter’s aspects mentioned above. There is also the work of Burton, although without aspect or Aktionsart terminology, it reflects the concepts in modern studies of these categories. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 6-7. 16 C. Bache, “Aspect and Aktionsart: Towards a Semantic Distinction”, Journal of Linguistics 18.1 (1982) 57-72 and also C. Bache, The Study of Aspect, Tense, and Action: Towards a Theory of the Semantics of Grammatical Categories (NY 1997) 64. 17 Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 8-9. 18 Porter, “Greek Grammar and Syntax”, 89. 19 See for example Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 49-50, Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 24-5. However, Evans contends that Aktionsart can become grammaticalized, this is similar for those who argues that certain lexical aspect (Aktionsart) features are semantic features. See Evans, Verbal Syntax, 21, and Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 18-54. 20 Decker uses the term verbal complex to describe the web of semantic factors comprised by all grammatical and contextual factors that contribute to the meaning of a verb. See Decker, Temporal Deixis, 27. 134 Francis G. H. Pang linguistics, Porter understands language as system-based and thus takes a systemic approach to aspect21. All meaningful components within a language are part of a system of various systemic choices. These systems of choices are then arranged into a network22. Since aspectuality is one of the systems in the Greek verbal network, it is essential to describe the relationship between the aspectual oppositions. There are two kinds of oppositions, privative and equipollent oppositions. A privative opposition consists of a pair of marked and unmarked members23. The unmarked member lacks the semantic feature that is present in the marked member. However, the unmarked member can be marked with the same feature as the marked member at the level of pragmatics24. In contrast, in an equipollent opposition, both members are marked with some specific semantic features25. Both Porter and Fanning regard the Greek aspect system as consisting of equipollent oppositions26, whereas Olsen endorses privative analysis of both the lexical (Aktionsart) and grammatical aspect27. With the various definitions now in place, the following is a brief summary of the five major contributions to the discussion of Greek verbal aspect28: 2.1 Kenneth L. McKay (1965) Although his monograph length work was published after the works of Porter and Fanning, McKay’s contribution on the Greek Porter, “Aspect Theory and Lexicography”, 216. Porter treats aspectuality and finiteness as the two major systems in the Greek verbal network. The network of systems is said to express a hierarchy of delicacy. In these systems of choices, the user of the language moves from the least delicate choices and then conditioned and led to further semantic choices, those of greater delicacy. Once the network of systems has been traversed, the accumulation of semantic choices is realized by the substance of the language. For more detail of the systemic functional model, see Porter, Verbal Aspect, 7-16. 23 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 89 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 19. 24 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 58. 25 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 20. 26 Porter lists four reasons to reject binary opposition. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 89-90. See also Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 71. 27 Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 199-200. While the privative analysis seems to hold for lexical aspect, Campbell found Olsen’s view of privative opposition in grammatical aspectual system less convincing. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 20-1. 28 There are obviously more than five contributors throughout the years. The five that are picked here contributed with their monograph length theoretical work. Decker’s work is more on a practitioner approach. Other contributors (like Evans and Wallace) will be mentioned in the discussion below. 21 22 135 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament verbal system to the discussion of the NT Greek aspect goes back to the early 1960s29. His definition of aspect is very similar to what we have described in this paper. He takes it as the category in the Greek verb system in which the speaker regards the action in relation to its context30. He identifies three easily distinguishable aspects (imperfective, aorist and perfect) with the future aspect as some kind of anomaly31. Aspect is distinguished from Aktionsart in McKay’s works. Traditional categories of the Aktionsarten are not used in his work. He relates the kind of action to the lexical distinction in verb types, which he argues is analogous to aspect32. He distinguishes two kinds of verbs in terms of lexical factor: action verbs (activities that are relatively definitive) and stative verbs (activities that refer to state of being) but stresses the importance of context in determining the translation of an aspectual form (which he calls realizations)33. McKay also boldly moves away from the popular notion of morphological time-indication, blaming that on the assumption of Western culture and the influence of Latin grammar34. This notion of avoiding mixture of aspect and temporality in tense terminology and equating tense-forms with aspectual categories is considered by some later aspect theorists as foundational35. Thus McKay’s model can be described as: Aspect imperfective aorist perfect future Primary Present Aorist Perfect Future [+intention] Secondary Imperfect Pluperfect Future-Perfect 29 His first work on the subject dates all the way back to 1965. Some of his works in the field including, K.L. McKay, “Syntax in Exegesis”, Tyndale Bulletin 23 (1972) 39-57; “On the Perfect and Other Aspects in New Testament Greek”, NT 23.4 (1981) 289-329; “Aspect in Imperatival Constructions in New Testament Greek”, NT 27.3 (1985) 201-26; his response to Porter and Fanning’s works: “Time and Aspect in New Testament”, NT 34 (1992) 209-28. See also K.L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach, (Studies in Biblical Greek 5; NY 1994). 30 McKay, “Syntax of Exegesis”, 44 and also McKay “On the Perfect and Other Aspects”, 20. 31 Emphasis original, McKay, A New Syntax, 27 and his other works. 32 McKay, A New Syntax, 27-8. 33 McKay, A New Syntax, 29. 34 Decker points out that McKay argues more prominently against morphological time-indication in his later works. McKay, “Syntax in Exegesis”, 45 and Decker, Temporal Deixis, 18. 35 Porter admits that his methodology is inspired by McKay’s work in many ways. Fanning and Evans also draw upon McKay, but mostly in their analysis of individual tense-form. Porter and Pitts, “Recent Researches”, 216-7; see also Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 93, 102, 104, 121-2, 147-8, etc. and Evans, Verbal Syntax, 26, 54, 146, etc. 136 Francis G. H. Pang 2.2 Stanley E. Porter (1989) Porter shares many methodological assumptions with McKay; he also stresses the distinction among aspect, Aktionsart, and temporal reference. To him, tense-form only reflects the speaker’s conception of the action (aspect), it is not used to grammaticalize time or Aktionsart. However, aspect may relate to other contextual factors (deictic indicators) to express temporal reference at the level of pragmatics36. As mentioned above, Porter builds his aspectual theory on a systemic functional linguistic paradigm37. Three points are stressed in his model: (1) Aspect is a matter of semantics; (2) the Greek verbal structure is viewed as system-based and (3) Aspectuality is treated as one of the two major systems in the Greek verbal network. Within this aspectual system, there are three individual aspect-systems: perfective (Aorist), imperfective (Present/Imperfect) and stative (Perfect/Pluperfect). In Porter’s system, the Future form is considered an anomaly due to its odd formal paradigm and limited distribution38. It is treated as partially aspectual with the choice of [±expectation] and grammaticalizes a speaker’s expectation toward a process39. The semantic value of each of these aspect-systems can be described in terms of verbal opposition. Marked pairs are used to describe these alternatives on the basis of equipollent binary opposition. Within the aspectual system40, at the least delicate level, the system requires choice of [+expectation] or [+aspectual] to distinguish the partial aspectual choice (Future) with the full aspectual choices. Further to the right with choices of greater delicacy are the two sub-systems ASPECT 1 and ASPECT 2, both full aspectual choices which cover the Aorist, Present and Perfect41. The aspect of the Pluperfect and Imperfect is realized by combining the ASPECT 2 with the REMOTENESS [±remoteness] system under [+assertion]. The following is part of the systemic display of the Greek verbal network42: Decker, Temporal Deixis, 22. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 7-16. 38 Porter, Idioms, 43. Porter contends that these peculiarities of the Future form can be explained by its late development in Greek verbal structure and thus independence of the form in relation to the rest of the network. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 95. See below for more detail. 39 More on this in the next section. See also, Porter, Verbal Aspect, 93-7 and 409-16. 40 For a more developed version of the Greek verbal network, see S.E. Porter and M.B. O’Donnell, “The Greek Verbal Network Viewed from a Probabilistic Standpoint: An Exercise in Hallidayan Linguistics”, FgNT 14 (2001) 40. 41 For detail, refer to Porter, Verbal Aspect, 89-109, esp. 93-6. 42 Part of chart 4 in Porter, Verbal Aspect, 109. 36 37 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament ASPECTUALITY + expectation + aspectual ASPECT 1 137 + perfective (Aorist) ASPECT 2 + imperfective (Present) - perfective + stative (Perfect) 2.3 Buist M. Fanning (1990) Similar to the understanding of McKay and Porter, Fanning defines aspect as a grammatical category that “reflects the focus or viewpoint of the speaker in regard to the action or condition which the verb describes”43. However, Fanning defines only two aspects: the internal/ imperfective and external/perfective aspects. The aspectual distinction rests upon the reference point from which the action is viewed. If the action is viewed from a reference point within the action, without reference to the beginning or the end of the action then it is said to be internal (imperfective). On the other hand, if an action is viewed from a reference point outside the action, from beginning to end, then it is said to have external (perfective) aspect44. Following the work of Bache, Fanning prefers to use ‘procedural characteristic’ to refer to what others considered as Aktionsart45. Procedural characteristic involves: how the action actually occurs; reflects the external, objective facts of the occurrence; … usually expressed lexically, either in the inherent meaning of the lexical form or in the derivational morphology (i.e. by means of prefixes or suffixes which affect the meaning of the verb46. Aspect is clearly distinguished from procedural character. Fanning argues that a correct understanding of aspect requires the user to understand both the basic meaning of the aspects and their function in combination with other linguistic features, which include procedural characteristics of verbs and actions47. Fanning uses the Vendler-Kenny Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 84. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 85. 45 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 38-41. See also, Bache, Aspect, Tense and Action, 227-44. 46 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 31. 47 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 77, 86. The other linguistic features include tense, structural oppositions among aspects and discourse functions. Porter and Pitts, “Recent Researches”, 217-8. 43 44 Francis G. H. Pang 138 taxonomy as the framework for the procedural characters48. Aspect and Aktionsart, although distinct, are closely related systems49. Unlike Porter and to a less extent McKay, Fanning argues that temporal indications are grammaticalized on the basis of the combination of tense-forms and other features of lexical and contextual meaning. He also asserts a temporal relationship between these contextual features and the indicative verb50. Thus for example, even though both the Present and the Imperfect take “the aspect-value of internal viewpoint concerning an occurrence”, the Imperfect indicates past time and the Present indicate present time51. The insistence of the time-based perspective on verbs and the emphasis of the inter-relationship between aspect and Aktionsart allow Fanning to define the Perfect form as a product of the stative Aktionsart, past time and external aspect. The following figure summarizes Fanning’s model: Aspect Tense external (perfective) internal (imperfective) Non-Aspectual Aorist Past Present Pluperfect [+stative Aktionsart] Perfect [+stative Aktionsart] Future Imperfect Present Future 2.4 Mari B. Olsen (1997) Olsen’s model resembles Fanning’s in quite a lot of ways. As mentioned above, she divides aspect into two categories: grammatical aspect is what comes close to Fanning’s definition of aspect; and lexical aspect, which 48 For detail of the application of the Vendler-Kenny taxonomy, see Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 126-96. 49 Porter and Pitts consider the inter-relational dimension of Fanning’s model is “perhaps the most distinguishing and complex characteristic of his work”. Porter and Pitts, “Recent Researches”, 218. 50 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 323-4, 406-7. Decker found this theory on temporal meaning puzzling. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 20-1. 51 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 198-9 and 240. Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 139 in essence is what others generally consider as Aktionsart52 According to Olsen, aspectual meaning is related to the understanding of the “internal temporal constituency” of an action. While grammatical aspect expresses a view of the internal temporal constituency of an action, lexical aspect expresses the nature of the internal temporal constituency of the action through Vendler’s taxonomy on temporal properties of the verbs53. Grammatical aspect is explained in terms of how an action related to the event time (ET) and the reference time (RT)54. Likewise, tense is represented by the relationship between the RT to a deictic center55. Olsen argues for a compositional aspectual interpretation, i.e. full aspectual meaning derives from both “the various constituents that encode lexical aspect (verbs, their arguments, temporal adverbials, etc.),” and the “grammatical aspect morphemes”56. The novel contribution of Olsen to the discussion of aspect is the principle of cancelability. As mentioned above, Olsen’s aspect model is evaluated in terms of a privative opposition. Lexical aspect is represented by three features: dynamicity, durativity, and telicity whereas grammatical aspect is marked by imperfective or perfective aspect. She argues that in a privative analysis of lexical aspect, only the positive member (those marked with the features) has a consistent, uncancelable semantic meaning, whereas verbs not marked may be interpreted as with or without the features depending on other lexical constituents and the pragmatic context57. Thus, meaning that comes from marked categories may not be canceled by contextual factors; unspecified features may be marked and unmarked by contextual elements (implicature). The following figure summarizes Olsen’s model: 52 In her own word: “I label the internal temporal constituency lexical aspect, it has also been known as situation aspect, inherent aspect, Aktionsart (German for ‘type of action’), actionality, aspectual class, verb class, and predicate class”. Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 8-11. 53 Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 8-13. See also Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 12696. 54 If the action is viewed from the perspective of the ET, it is imperfective. If the perspective is from the coda of the event time, it is perfective. See Decker, Temporal Deixis, 23 and the detail analysis in Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 64-73. 55 The deitic center (C) is the time of speech, which is determined by pragmatic implicature. C is the reference point in determining time. If RT is prior to C then it is past tense, if RT is located at C, then present, if RT after C, then future. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 23 and Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 117-9. 56 Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 14. 57 Whether the same can be said of grammatical aspect is not obvious in her work. She argues that there are some languages where imperfective aspect is semantic but perfective aspect is cancelable pragmatic implicatures but did not give example on how it is possible in Greek. Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 20, 31. Francis G. H. Pang 140 Aspect Tense Past Present Future Unmarked Imperfective Perfective Imperfect Pluperfect Perfect Present Aorist Unmarked Future 2.5 Constantine R. Campbell (2007) The latest contribution to the discussion of Greek verbal aspect is the recent work of Constantine Campbell. His definition of aspect, much like the others, focuses on the opposition between the internal and external portrayal of an action58. Aspect and Aktionsart is carefully distinct in Campbell’s work. Following Bache, several distinctions are made: whereas aspect is regarded as primarily (not entirely) subjective, Aktionsart is regarded as primarily (not entirely) objective; whereas aspect is a semantic category, Aktionsart a pragmatic category; whereas aspect concerns the perspective of the speaker on an action, Aktionsart concerns how the nature of an action can be objectively determined59. Campbell also adopts the principle of cancelability to distinguish semantic values (aspect) from pragmatic implicature (Aktionsart)60. Like Porter and Fanning, Campbell regards Greek grammatical aspect as equipollent aspectual opposition rather than privative opposition. He did not describe his aspectual system at the outset, claiming that it is rather difficult to choose whether there are two aspects (Fanning, Olsen) or three (Porter and Decker). He contends that the key to the decision is to figure out the aspect of the Perfect and Pluperfect forms. He argues that an inductive/bottom-up approach is preferable, from which the aspect of the Perfect “may be recognized from the patterns evident within text rather than imposed upon it deductively”61. Campbell points out that those who reject a temporal understanding of the verb may prefer the concept of remoteness to distinguish the two imperfective tense-forms (Present and Imperfect)62. Remoteness 58 Formally, he starts his work with the following: “Verbal aspect refers to the manner in which verbs are used to view an action or state. An author/speaker will portray an event either from the inside, as though it is seen as unfolding, or from the outside, as though it is seen as a whole”. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 1. 59 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 10-11. 60 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 26-7. 61 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 29-30. 62 He cites Decker as an example. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 15. Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 141 is a spatial category used to express distance or lack of proximity temporally, logically or contextually63. He argues that the Perfect form, as demonstrated to be a “discourse tense-form”64, overlaps with the Present Indicative, which itself is the dominant tense-form within discourse. As such, Campbell argues that the Perfect shares the imperfective aspect (like Present)65. The expanded remoteness category with more level of proximity is used to accommodate the expansion of aspect category. Campbell’s model looks like the following: Aspect Spatial Perfective Imperfective Heightened Proximity Perfect Proximity Present Remoteness Aorist Heightened Remoteness Imperfect Pluperfect Future [+ future tense] Non-Spatial To summarize the discussion so far, the following table describes the major views under different grouping: View Number of Aspects Semantics of TenseForms Aktionsart McKay 4 Aspect + Time? Aktionsart Porter 3 Aspect Aktionsart Fanning 2 Aspect + Time Procedural Character Olsen 2 Grammatical Aspect + Time Lexical Aspect Campbell 2 Aspect + Remoteness Aktionsart However, he argues that the Future grammaticalizes future time. More on this in the next section. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 14-16. 64 Campbell uses the term “discourse” to refer to direct, indirect and authorial discourse, Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 3-4, 12. 65 For detail, see Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 161-210. 63 142 Francis G. H. Pang 3. Aspectuality and the Future form If the debate on verbal aspect is like a tempest, the discussion of the aspectuality of the Future form is one of the centers of the storm66. The place of the Future form in the Greek verbal system is always a matter of contention among scholars. Some argue that the Future form is purely perfective; others claim that it is capable of expressing both perfective and imperfective aspects. This aspectual ambiguity prompted some scholars to conclude that the form is non-aspectual or aspectually unmarked. The lack of an obvious aspectual choice for an author to establish the constituency of a process prompted others to conclude that it is not fully aspectual. The following is an attempt to synthesize the current debate on the aspectuality of the Future. The goal is to provide a summary of various approaches and critique their various assumptions and methodology. We will first examine the validity of the models that champion a perfective aspect (Wallace, O’Brien and Campbell) and then move on to the nonaspectual approaches (Olsen and Fanning) and finally investigate the approaches that treat the Future with unique semantic feature (McKay and Porter). 3.1 Perfective Aspect and Abductive Reasoning Wallace considers a perfective aspect for the Future form solely on a morphological basis. He argues that the Future is morphologically linked with the Aorist Indicative. The shared sigma tense formative is then taken as an indication that the Aorist Indicative is a “morphological ancestor” to the Future. Thus the Future is likely to be aspectual and expresses the same aspectual choice. In other words, the Future, like the Aorist, grammaticalizes perfective aspect67. However, grammarians usually posit that the forms of the Aorist Subjunctive came together with the Future Indicative during the Hellenistic period68. Even purely 66 The other is the Perfect form where it attracts most discussions. The opinion on aspect encoded by the other tense-forms (Aorist, Present and Imperfect) is relatively more uniform among the scholars. For the discussion on the Perfect form, see for example, Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 161-211. 67 Wallace, Greek Grammar, 566-7 n.1. 68 Papanastassiou states that the identical pronunciation of <ƨƬ> and <̆> in the Hellenistic period resulted in certain forms of falling together phonetically, which contributed to the coming together of the aorist subjunctive and the future indicative. G.C. Papanastassiou, “Morphology: From Classical to the Koine”, A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity (ed. A.-F. CHRISTIDIS) (Cambridge 2007) 616-7 and F.T. Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (Milano 1976) ii.358-9. Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 143 arguing on a morphological level, without the augment and using the same tense formative, the form of the Aorist Subjunctive is closer to the Future Indicative. Although in the works of some ancient writers the Aorist Indicative and Future Indicative seem to share the property of being indeterminate, the exact meaning of the ancient writers in this case is difficult to judge69. Campbell, who comes to the same conclusion with another line of argument, articulates well when he adds, “arguments from morphology and diachrony can only perform a confirmatory role”70. In his opening discussion on methodological considerations, Campbell argues explicitly the uniqueness of his approach from a methodological point of view. Calling some other approaches deductive and theorydriven71, he seeks to demonstrate that the aspect of the Greek verbal system should be determined by an inductive approach72. In contrast to the deductive method of reasoning, where a theory or a rule is hypothesized and then tested and confirmed with a selective set of available data73, he proposes a bottom-up approach, where the result is “recognized from the patterns evident within text rather than imposed upon it deductively”74. His approach is two-fold in practice: the selected text corpora are first investigated for discernable patterns of usage of every Indicative tense-forms in various strands of discourses75, and then these patterns are examined to uncover the aspectual value of each form. However, in dealing with the Future form, Campbell’s argument largely follows an unproven premise proposed by Mark O’Brien76. O’Brien’s work is mainly derived from a premise of Fanning. Fanning’s assertion is that the relationship and interaction between the aspect and procedural characteristic (i.e. Aktionsart) produces patterns that 69 R.I. Binnick, Time and the Verb: A Guide to Tense and Aspect (Oxford 1991) 20-4 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 139-40. 70 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 140. 71 Following Evans and Olsen, Campbell criticizes Porter’s work as theory-driven. Refer to the following section on temporal reference of the Future. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 153 n. 49. 72 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 29-30. 73 Campbell claims that this approach is easier to conduct and is possible to come up with spurious conclusions, even calling such conclusions eisegesis. See his illustration of the aspect of the Perfect form. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 29-30. 74 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 30. 75 For example, 96.6% of the usage of Perfect in Luke is found in direct discourse, of which 21.6% are forms of ƱʄƧƤ and 15% are Perfect of ƦƲƟƷƺ. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 175-6. 76 From his unpublished Th.M thesis from Dallas Theological Seminary. M. O’Brien, “Verbal Aspect in the Future Tense of the Greek New Testament” (Th.M. Diss., Dallas Theological Seminary; Dallas 1997) 1-58, particularly 23-5. See also Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 140-51. 144 Francis G. H. Pang are predictable77. O’Brien relies on this hypothesis in his work, seeking to “isolate any consistency in the verbal aspect of future forms”78. His logic is that from the known patterns between certain aspects and other contextual and lexical factors, one could examine the pattern of certain tense-form and work backward to determine its aspect79. Based on this premise, he argues that if he is able to demonstrate that the Future and the Aorist behave similarly when combined with certain lexical and contextual factors, then it is reasonable to conclude that the Future, like the Aorist, grammaticalize the same aspect, the perfective aspect80. To prove his thesis, O’Brien suggests that verbs that are claimed to be lexically stative when used to express perfective aspect (grammaticalized by a tense-form) will create an ingressive Aktionsart81. After examining certain stative verbs in the Future Indicative, he concludes that they behave in a manner similar to its Aorist counterpart. The stative verbs in the Future Indicative form imply the beginning or the inception of a state to be within view. Likewise, when verbs of accomplishment (i.e. verbs that express a sense of accomplishment in the lexical level) are used in the Future form, they will behave similarly to its Aorist use and demonstrate a stress on the consummation of the process82. One caveat regarding the above argument is worth mentioning before moving on to the discussion of Campbell’s method. First, although O’Brien points to ample instances in the NT to demonstrate the alleged ingressive expression in the use of the Future Indicative of selective class of verbs, not all of these examples are convincing83. He admits that for those examples that demonstrate non-ingressive uses, it can be explained on the basis of contextual intrusions84. This brings home the major weakness of his thesis, concerning the unanswered question of what constitutes the ingressive expression in these examples. If the non-ingressive uses of Future can be attributed to contextual intrusions, why is it then the ingressive readings are due to the lexical meaning of the verb but not the same contextual factors? More work has to be done to clearly explicate Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 49-50, 126-96. O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 23. 79 O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 23-5. 80 However, he admits that this hypothesis is heavily depends on the premise suggested by Fanning. O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 25. 81 O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 24. 82 In his words, when verbs of accomplishment are used to express perfective aspect, they will stress “the sense of the action progressing and accomplishing its fulfillment, at which point the action ceases”. O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 41. 83 See also, Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 142. 84 As noted by Campbell, O’Brien does not indicate what these contextual intrusions might be. O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 40 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 142, n33. 77 78 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 145 what these contextual intrusions are and in what circumstances it will contribute to the expression of ingression85. Although Campbell also notices the complexity of identifying ingression in the Future form86, he considers this lack of uniformity and consistency as irrelevant to the discussion, claiming that what needs to be proven is not certainty of an ingressive interpretation, but a possibility that these examples may be read as ingressive, “even if they do not necessarily demand such a reading”87. The analysis of the verbs of accomplishment falls along the same line of argument and thus is vulnerable to the same problem of inconsistency. O’Brien tries to downplay this by pointing out that the Aorist also demonstrates this same inconsistency, that consummation is not evident in all instances88. However, one has to demonstrate that these verbs of accomplishment exercise the same pattern of inconsistency in both the Future and Aorist in order to call this a valid comparison. Campbell admits that although he considers O’Brien’s method as novel and holding promise89, he also sees the selective and qualified nature of O’Brien’s work as a potential pitfall. He points out that the lack of formal criteria for the inclusion of the class of verbs in question is a major weakness in O’Brien’s work90. Instead of formulating a formal criterion for the inclusion of the classes of verbs or better explaining why certain verbs are not considered, he includes more verbs that are “quite significant in New Testament usage” in his analysis91. Similar to the method proposed by O’Brien, he develops his method according to the premise of Fanning, with an expanded list of verbs, seeking to “observe the Aktionsart created in each usage and comment as to whether such Aktionsarten may be regarded as legitimate expressions of perfective aspect”92. After 85 There is obviously another explanation to it, that the ingression is totally a product of context. See below discussion on semantics and pragmatics. 86 He agrees with Huovila, another unpublished thesis on aspect, that it is intrinsically difficulty to identify ingression but considers it irrelevant to the discussion. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 142, and Kimmo Huovila, “Towards a Theory of Aspectual Nesting for New Testament Greek”, (M.A. Thesis, University of Helsinki; Helsinki 1999) 62. 87 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 142. 88 Campbell considers this as a fair explanation. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 143 and O’Brien, “Future Tense”, 48-9. 89 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 141-2. 90 Campbell points out that the verbs chosen by O’Brien are taken from lists of Aorist verbs in Fanning and Zerwick’s works. O’Brien, “Future Tense,” 27 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 143-4. 91 He lists ƨɾ—Ƣ, ƦƢƯƱ—ƤƬ, ɒƭƱƾƺ, ʏƲƟƺ, ƥƮƠ›ƺ, ƫƨƺƲƠƺ, ƭƨ̖—ƤƬ, ƭƤƫƠưƱ—ƤƬ and —ƠƯƺ as examples. See Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 144-51 for examples. 92 Although he claims that the Aktionsart-aspect method of O’Brien is abandon in his study for this point on, but it is hard to determine how his method is different from O’Brien’s. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 144. 146 Francis G. H. Pang going through several of these “neglected verbs” as found in the selected corpora, barring a few apparent contradictions, he concludes that most of the Future instances of the selected verbs create an ingressive Aktionsart, “focusing on the beginning of an action or the entrance into a state”, and concludes that the Future form semantically encodes perfective aspect93. However, Campbell’s handling of exceptions merits particular attention. Although most instances of the verbs he chooses are shown to be without any serious problem, i.e. most examples he cites are possible to read as perfective, his handling of the Future of ƦʽƯƱ—ƤƬ in John 10:16 seems to go against his own inductive assumption. As mentioned above, he explicitly argues that his method is inductive in nature and particularly guards against the practice of using particular translations to argue for certain assumed theory94. However, in dealing with the phrase ƭƤʼ ƦƨƯʻƴƱƯƵƤƬ —ʽƤ ›Ʊʽ—Ưƪ, ƨʅƳ ›ƱƬ—ʻƯ from John 10:16, although he admits that this phrase clearly expresses a stative Aktionsart instead of ingressive, he attributes this problem to be a matter of translation, citing his own ingressive reading against the NASB translation he used throughout his work95. Thus he apparently violates his own methodological assumption. Therefore, at first glance O’Brien and Campbell’s works seem to be exercising a bottom-up approach in a manner similar to what is called a reverse engineering procedure, reconstructing the thematic schema from mining the pattern of the data. However, as demonstrated above, their approach relies heavily on the premise that there is a discernable and reliable pattern between aspect and Aktionsart, which itself is nothing more than an unproven assertion. Viewing it under these lights, Campbell’s method is more to the deductive end of the spectrum than being inductive as he wanted it to be. However, it is equally unfair to conclude that Campbell’s approach is deductive in nature. Instead of the exact opposite of what he claims to be, the essence of his methodology is closer to what is called abductive logical reasoning. While he is not as theory-neutral as he wanted to be, and in fact it is doubtful that there exists a pure theory-neutral method, his approach seems to slightly reflect a process of refinement between the data and the hypothesis. Formally, the notion of abduction or abductive reasoning originated from American philosopher Charles S. Peirce96. He defined abduction See his analysis, Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 144-51, here 145. He uses the aspect of the Perfect as an example, claiming that when stative aspect is assumed instead of proved to be expressed by the Perfect form, if one “cite[s] several examples of how to translate the perfect statively, and while this may or may not be accurate, it amounts to little more than eisegesis”. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 29-30. 95 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 145-6. 96 Charles S. Peirce, “Pragmatism and Pragmaticism”, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol.5. (eds. C. Hartshorne - P. Weiss) (Cambridge, MA 1965) 99-107. Walton 93 94 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 147 in terms of “explanation and hypothesis,” “the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis”97. It differs from deductive and inductive reasoning as it is looking for a hypothesis as a best explanation, an intelligent or reasonable guess, given what is known and what is not known in the case98. An abductive analysis draws conclusions by working from the given data and then tries to explain these facts or evidences by suggesting an explanation99. Formally, a plausible hypothesis is formed with the available data. It is then “tested by further investigations, providing more data that could support or refute the hypothesis”100. It is a process of refinement of the hypothesis. The data and the hypothesis are in a reciprocal relationship shaping the other. It is thus fair to conclude that apart from some extreme cases where true deductive method is assumed, aspect theorists try to make the most intelligent guess (i.e. hypothesize) from the available data in constructing and proving their theory. Before moving on, a few remarks regarding the relationship between verb classes and aspect. First, aspect is arguably not a function of the lexical root but rather a function of the morphological form101. It is also yet to be shown how a certain class of verbs is classified. It is apparent that quite often when a certain set of verbs is said to be inherent with a certain kind of linguistic feature, Aktionsart in this case, the formal criteria to classify this set of verbs is not provided. In Campbell’s case, although he notices these various problems102, Campbell accepts O’Brien’s logic and argues for the perfective understanding of the Future by connecting the ingressive Aktionsart with the perfective aspect. However, as mentioned above and even well articulated in his own work103, Campbell considers Aktionsart to be a pragmatic category whereas aspect a semantic category. If Aktionsart is not grammaticalized by tense-form but by pragmatic shows his doubt on this and suggests that an article by Harman is also possibly responsible for introducing the notion of abduction to philosophy. D. Walton, Abductive Reasoning (Tuscaloosa, AL 2004) 3. 97 Walton, Abductive Reasoning, 8. 98 Walton, Abductive Reasoning, 11. 99 Walton, Abductive Reasoning, 17. 100 Walton, Abductive Reasoning, 5. 101 Porter argues that aspectuality and lexicogrammar is two different systems in the Greek verbal network and should not be treated as interrelated. Stanley E. Porter, “Verbal Aspect and Lexicography”, Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography (Grand Rapids, MI 2004) 215-21. See also Henk J. Verkuyl, A Theory of Aspectuality, (Cambridge, UK 1993) 33-70. 102 He points to the fact that O’Brien does not clearly define the criteria to determine what verbs to include and exclude. However, likewise he does not give an account for his inclusion of the various verbs in his study. 103 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 24-5. 148 Francis G. H. Pang implicature, the usage of a Future verb that expresses certain Aktionsart which reflects perfective understanding of the verb does not mean that the tense-form itself grammaticalizes such aspect. Thus the seemingly definite correlation between certain aspect and Aktionsart, the basis of many of these models, is coincidental rather than axiomatic. All that can be said is that there are some instances when a certain verb is used with other contextual factors that express certain Aktionsart, the verbal complex in its entirety, not the tense-form per se, will also expresses such Aktionsart. Thus, failure to maintain a clear distinction between the function and the nature of aspect and Aktionsart inevitably leads to a misreading of the aspect of the Future. However, Campbell is not the only scholar who tries to determine the semantic feature of the Future by examining the relationship and interaction between aspect and Aktionsart. Using different terminologies, Mari Olsen talks about how Aktionsart contributes to the understanding of the aspect of the Future in her works. However, her model, which is to some extent also based on Fanning’s premise, came up with contrasting conclusions even following what is apparently the same line of argument. 3.2 Non-Aspectual or Aspectual Unmarked Olsen ties grammatical aspect with Aktionsart but instead of reading ingressive expression from the Future instances, like Fanning, her analysis focuses on the lexical telicity104. Recall that Olsen endorses a privative opposition of lexical aspect (Aktionsart) in her model, i.e. a verb that is unspecified in lexical aspect may be marked with semantic features but the opposite is not possible. In another words, the positive member of the lexical aspect is an uncancelable semantic feature, whereas its opposite is not part of the semantic representation of lexical aspect105. Thus for example, the lexical aspect of the verbs that are not marked with [+telic] may be interpreted as either telic or atelic depending on context106. Under this line of argument, Olsen argues the Future is an aspectually unmarked form since it has “the range of interpretations associated with unmarked members of privative oppositions”107. The grammatical aspect of the Future may be interpreted as either imperfective or perfective, depending Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 260-3. Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 31-5. 106 The same can be said of for the other two lexical aspectual feature, [+dynamic] and [+durative]. Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 31. 107 Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 260. 104 105 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 149 on context and lexical telicity. Verbs that are unmarked for telicity may be made telic by adding a telic prefix or combining with other contextual factors108. Thus the verbal complexes that are unmarked for telicity may be interpreted as either imperfective or perfective109, whereas those that are marked for positive telicity are interpreted as perfective. The aspect of the Future thus varies from situation to situation; some situations assert that the action will be taking place in the future, thus imperfective, while some other situations stress the coda of the action, hence perfective110. However, this interpretive flexibility of the Future has long been noticed by others111. Grammarians in the last century have long articulated similar observations112. For instance, Moulton, among others, notices the mixture of usage in the Future and claims that a distinction can be made between, what is called today, durative and punctiliar Aktionsarten in those verbs that a double form exists (e.g. ɦƸƺ)113. Similarly, Burton also contends that the Future may be interpreted as aoristic or progressive not “from the point of view of pure grammar” but on the basis of lexis in context114. Olsen’s approach to the Future is also indebted to Fanning, who articulates succinctly: [The] mixture of usage in the future (punctual or durative sense) appears to indicate not the flexible aspectual meaning of the future but its nonaspectual character. The variation between punctiliar and durative seems to be dependent upon the lexical sense and contextual features, totally apart from an aspectual value for the future115. For example, ɦƲƸƱ—ƤƬ is atelic whereas by adding the telic prefix ɢƭ- and ƨɾƴ-, ɢưƠƲƸƱ—ƤƬ and ƨɾƴƠƲƸƱ—ƤƬ become telic. Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 208, see also Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 151. 109 Although she contends that the telicity unmarked verbs are generally interpreted as imperfective. Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 260. 110 Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 260-3. 111 Campbell also articulates this interpretive flexibility but concluded that this flexibility is a product of contextual factor, i.e. by Aktionsart, instead of a feature of the Future aspect. When handling the use of —ƠƯƺ in John 15:10, which is difficult to ascribe an ingressive sense but apparently continuous, he contends that it is the continuous Aktionsarten rather than imperfective aspect that is at work, which do not negate an intrinsically perfective understanding of the verb. Thus maintaining his own view that the Future Indicative encodes perfective aspect. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 149-51. However, he does not explicate that how the perfective understanding of the verb is not a product of Aktionsart but should be read aspectually. 112 See the discussion in Porter, Verbal Aspect, 408-9. 113 J.H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek: Prolegomena (Edinburgh 1908) 148-50, see also Robertson, Grammar, 870-2. 114 E. Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek (Edinburgh 1973) 31-3. 115 Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 120. 108 150 Francis G. H. Pang In this Olsen, and Fanning to a lesser extent, indirectly categorizes aspect into pragmatics instead of semantics by making aspect a function of Aktionsart. However, similar to the methodological shortcomings of the model proposed by Campbell and O’Brien, nowhere is the classification criteria of the telic verbs clearly spelled out in her approach. Although Olsen does include a definition of the telic verbs as those that “always denote situation with an inherent end” (such as the verbs of accomplishments, verbs of achievements and verbs of stages-level states), she does not provide the detailed and formal criteria of inclusion and exclusion of the verbs116. Thus as shown above, even when a similar approach is employed, Olsen’s analysis produces contrary result when compared to O’Brien and Campbell. Thus conflating aspect and Aktionsart categories in the analysis add little to the understanding of the aspect of the Future. It is also worth pointing out that even though most of the scholars insist on articulating a clear distinction between semantics and pragmatics categories and a clear distinction between aspect and Aktionsart, such insistences break down when the tense-form under investigation lacks a clear expression of aspect. A brief summary statement is vital before moving on in the discussion. The uniqueness of the Future in the discussion of the Greek verbal system is apparent. As mentioned above, some have tried to explicate the aspect of the Future using the alleged underlying relationship with Aktionsart. Others have treated it as an absolute tense-form that primarily expresses time but resulted with a category that “must be qualified so radically, with such labels as the gnomic future and relative future, that the category becomes vacuous”117. However, the result of those scholars who seek to frame the discussion with already-established categories are usually not wholly satisfactory. Whether one regards the Future purely as a tense, a mood or an aspect, one has to confront a long list of exceptions118. 3.3 The Fourth Aspect The present study places the models of McKay and Porter in the same group not because their conclusion is the same, but because both analyses Olsen, Lexical and Grammatical Aspect, 206. Like the BDF for example, more will be said regarding the temporality of the Future in the next section. Porter, Idioms, 43. See also BDF, 348. 118 Wallace has labels like predictive future, imperatival future, deliberative future, gnomic future and other miscellaneous subjunctive equivalents. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 568-71. 116 117 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 151 seek to explicate the aspect of the Future using non-traditional categories; both of them deviate from the aforementioned Aktionsart-driven approaches and define aspect on different criteria than used elsewhere; and both propose a similar semantic feature of the Future. McKay regards the Future as expressing a unique fourth aspect. He contends that the Future is partly anomalous, even defective, in the sense that it is used mainly to grammaticalize the semantic feature of intention but also to express simple futurity119. He stresses that the relationship between the aspectual and temporal expression is subtle. To handle the exceptions, he argues that certain statements of futurity that do not appear to express intentionality are a consequence of the intentional idea120. Being alone in proposing four aspects, he acknowledges the difficulties but defends the future aspect by saying that it is “an explanation which recognizes that the range of future forms approximates most closely to those of the three obvious aspects [imperfective, aorist and perfect]”121. This is where Porter’s approach is different from McKay’s. Porter rejects both the notions that the Future constitutes a verbal aspect in its own right and that the tense form by itself grammaticalizes temporal reference. Although he acknowledges McKay’s contribution as commendable, Porter criticizes his attempt as it failed to cover the idea of internal constituency or paradigmatic choice, calling his definition a “hotchpotch of intentional and external temporal features, and hence fails to be fully convincing”122. In addition, by attributing both the function of temporal and modal reference to the future aspect, McKay’s definition is close to committing a category mistake, i.e. speaking of a tense-form in terms of both temporal relation and attitude123. Porter’s model is arguably the most systematic, comprehensive and technical work to date. It attracts most discussions and criticisms on methodological issues, while at the same time, being misunderstood and misrepresented by some of his critics. His approach is often criticized as being difficult to read124, and theory-driven125. His treatment of the 119 McKay, “Time and Aspect”, 225; McKay, “Syntax in Exegesis”, 46; McKay, “Perfect and other Aspects”, 290 and McKay, New Syntax, 52. 120 McKay, Greek Grammar, 147. 121 In response to Porter’s view of aspectually vagueness of the Future. McKay, “Time and Aspect”, 225. 122 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 408. 123 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 407. 124 McKay, New Syntax, 35-6. 125 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 136. See also McKay, “Time and Aspect”, 210, who expresses the concern of Porter’s work that “theory can sometimes lose sight of fact”, and considers his own work as “being less confusing to the person who learns Greek mainly to understand the text of the NT”. 152 Francis G. H. Pang Future is criticized for its radical direction in denying the relevance of time126, but at the same time most critics see his approach to the aspect of the Future being the same as those proposed by Fanning and Olsen, that the Future is non-aspectual. However, before we move on to talk about his approach, a word in response to the last criticism is essential. In contrary to Fanning and Olsen, Porter’s conclusion of the aspect of the Future has nothing to do with Aktionsart or the alleged interpretive flexibility (durative or punctiliar) of the Future. In fact, not one time does he label the Future non-aspectual in his work, but he rather uses phrases like “not fully aspectual” or aspectually vague127. 3.4 Non-Aspectual vs. Not Fully Aspectual It is important for the discussion at this point to turn to explicate the nuance of the notion of aspectual vagueness or partial aspectuality. Claiming the Future as aspectually vague or more accurately not fully aspectual is not the same as saying that it carries no aspectual value. The distinction is subtle but essential. In Porter’s model, the reason for the Future being regarded as aspectually vague is not, as alleged by his critics, due to the dictation of his systemic framework. The point of departure of his study is not the lack of binary opposition but rather the lack of a complete paradigmatic edifice and the functional overlapping of the Future with the non-Indicative Mood. The fact that the Future does not have a complete paradigm like the other tense-forms in and of itself warrants close scrutiny, not only for the sake of determining its aspect, but also for the purpose of getting a better understanding of the form and its place in the verbal system. The Future has only one set of forms, apart from the Indicative; it has Participle and a very rare Infinitive form128. The lack of a complete paradigm that covers the set of Moods means that it is impossible to enter into a meaningful comparison with the other tense-forms. This paradigmatic deficiency also made it difficult to categorize the Future in the verbal network. It lacks a contrast with the non-indicative (Subjunctive, Imperative, Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 152-3 and Evans, Verbal Syntax, 38. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 95, 403, 438-9; Porter, Idioms, 43. 128 The Future Infinitive is very rare in the NT. There are only five instances in the entire NT; four of them appear in Acts (Future Infinitive of ƨɾ—Ƣ in 11:28, 23:20, 24:15, 27:10) and one in Hebrews (ƨɾƴƠƲƸƱ—ƤƬ in Heb. 3:18). Although in classical Greek the Infinitive was more frequent than the Participle, both cease to exist in Hellenistic Greek. For a detail discussion of Future Participle and Infinitive, see Porter, Verbal Aspect, 417-9. 126 127 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 153 Optative) forms if it is treated as Indicative. At the same time, although the usage of the Future has an apparent overlapping in function with the non-Indicative Moods, if treated as a non-Indicative form, there is no Indicative choice to complete the paradigm129. In addition to the problem of an odd formal paradigm, grammarians are also confronted with instances of the Future used in non-temporal (nonfuture) and non-Indicative contexts. Porter articulates this phenomenon meticulously saying that, “[t]here are functions and constructions that the Future shares with Indicative verbs and there are functions and constructions that the Future shares with non-Indicative Moods”130. However, this does not mean Porter considers that the Future is used to express time in the NT. In fact, scholars that insist on an exclusive temporal usage or modal usage of the Future must confront all kinds of exceptions and qualifications that make the category become meaningless. Virtually all treatments of the Future have to deal with the fact that the form itself is used in distinctly non-future and non-Indicative contexts, such as timeless expression (Matt 6:14-15; 15:14; etc.), command (Matt 5:21; 6:5; 7:7; etc.), or parallel with the Subjunctive (Matt 18:6)131. Scholars have agreed on the late development of the Future in the history of the Greek language132. The fact that its origin is possibly a non-Indicative form partly explains its usage in non-Indicative contexts and non-Indicative expressions133. This late emergence of the form also helps to explain the paradigmatic peculiarities134. To summarize, the Future is intrinsically handicapped with regard to being on par with the other tense-form due to the virtual independence of its form in relation to the Greek verbal network. The Future does not offer a clear and meaningful paradigmatic choice in opposition to other tenseforms. Thus one way of explicating the aspectual vagueness of the form is in terms of its unique position in the Greek verbal network. Since form and function goes hand-in-hand within a verbal system, the paradigmatic peculiarities or the underdevelopment of the Future form resulted in 129 The other tense-forms’ paradigms are complete to varying degrees. It is also pointed out that the Future has a Participle and an Infinitive it cannot be treated as a non-Indicative Mood alone. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 409. See also Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 129-30. 130 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 412. 131 Temporality will be discussed in the next section. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 411. 132 The debate is rather on the origin of the form. See for example, Moulton, Prolegomena, 148-51; Evans, Verbal Syntax, 32-4, Porter, Verbal Aspect, 403-4, 412 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 158. 133 Scholars have not agreed on whether the Future was growing out of the Aorist Subjunctive or desiderative forms or both. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 403-4. 134 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 438. 154 Francis G. H. Pang its peculiar position in the aspectual system135. Therefore, although the Future has “distinctive yet tense-related morphological features” and is related to a way of viewing the action, it is not fully aspectual or aspectually vague since no paradigmatic choice is offered136. Thus on the one hand it shares the environment of other fully aspectual tense-forms but on the other hand it lacks formally a meaningful opposition within the verbal network, thus the Future is explained under the aspectuality system but not fully aspectual. Thus to summarize, Porter’s approach to the aspect of Future tense is truly abductive. He tries to come up with an intelligent explanation, a hypothesis, regarding the place of the Future in the Greek verbal system from the available data, i.e. its paradigm. Before moving on to the discussion of the semantic feature of the Future, a brief note concerning the theory-driven criticism towards Porter’s model is necessary. Campbell argues that Porter should consider the future periphrasis as a possible opposition to the Future Indicative. He criticizes Porter’s approach as circular, arguing that since both the aspect of the Future and its opposition are unknown, Porter should not use one to advance his argument for another137. This is where the theory-driven argument is used once again to go against Porter’s model. Campbell concludes that Porter’s model “may be regarded as an instance in which adherence to a linguistic model becomes overbearing”138. Campbell’s suggestion of using the future periphrasis as an opposition is perhaps possible on the theoretical level, but practically impossible to apply and verify since the Future Periphrasis is too rare in the NT139. The theory-driven criticism has already been touched on in the above section. One has to remember that practically there is hardly a pure theory-neutral method. If Porter’s insistence on finding a meaningful opposition is accused of being theory-driven, the same can be said about 135 Porter stresses that the most important dictum for constructing a linguistic model is that where there is a difference of form there is a difference in meaning or function. Evans opposes and argues that the dictum is flawed. However, his example of differences in verb ending (form) between thematic and athematic verbs is not valid since the difference in verb endings between these two types of verbs is not a difference in form, but a difference in paradigm. See Porter, “Defense”, 34 and Evans, Verbal Syntax, 41. 136 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 413. For vagueness see R. Kempson, Semantic Theory (Cambridge 1977) 123-38. 137 He considers Kimmo Huovila’s approach under the same assumption and thus vulnerable to the same mistake. Huovila, “Aspectual Nesting”, 62-5 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 136. 138 He also rejects McKay’s proposal of using [+intention] in favor of the accepted aspectual oppositions (perfective and imperfective). Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 136, 139. 139 Even he himself admits that the future periphrasis is not a synthetic tense-form and thus difficult to compare with the Future Indicative. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 136. Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 155 Campbell’s own theory, that his argument of a perfective Future is made to fit this rather peculiar tense-form (the Future) to “the accepted two aspect system”140, even to a point of conflating aspect and Aktionsart. In fact, one can argue that Porter’s treatment shows the exact opposite of being theory-driven. One would think that if one has to strictly follow Porter’s system and include all tense-forms, instead of calling the Future as not fully aspectual, one would have to impose an opposition to the Future to create a more balanced system. 3.5 Semantic Feature of the Future As mentioned above, due to its rather odd formal paradigm, any attempt to place the Future within established categories, whether treating it strictly as a tense, a non-Indicative Mood, or an aspect, will confront countless qualifications and exceptions. In Porter’s verbal network, the Future is under the aspectuality system since it has tenserelated morphological features. It is “compatible with environments where full aspectual choice is made, but it does not grammaticalize such choice itself”141. It has been noted that the Future is used parallel to or in place of the non-Indicative Moods, this apparent functional overlapping provides the direction of the discussion of semantic features of the Future. The Future thus expresses “a volition, a desire, an aim toward a goal, a prediction, an intention, an expectation”142. Porter argues that the Future grammaticalizes [+expectation]. He summarizes it as: The Future is a unique form in Greek, similar both to the aspects and to the attitudes, but fully neither, and realizing not a temporal conception but a marked and emphatic expectation toward a process143. As one can easily notice, Porter’s [+expectation] is very similar to McKay’s proposal of intention. The main distinction is that Porter does not regard the Future as grammaticalizing time, but only the semantic feature of expectation. This is where his treatment attracts most heated criticisms. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 139, n21. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 413. 142 Porter states that this is where most of the grammarians would agree on. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 414. 143 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 414. 140 141 156 Francis G. H. Pang 3.6 Temporality Unlike the debate surrounding the aspect of the Future, the state of the discussion of Future temporality is rather simple. The diversity of aspect proposals is replaced by a dichotomy between Porter (and Decker) on one side and all other interpreters mentioned in this study on the other side. Even McKay, who forcefully dismisses the temporal reference in other tense-forms, contends that the Future is used to express futurity144. A word on the diachronic development of the Future is worth repeating here. As mentioned above, the historical development of the form in the evolution of the Greek language is not a determinative factor of the aspect of a tense-form in a particular period. However, it is treated as a supporting factor and used to elucidate other findings145. The scholars who argue for a temporal interpretation of the Future usually point to the passages in the NT that shows a clear future reference. Campbell argues since most of the Future instances are found within direct discourse, “this broad pattern should not surprise us if a temporal approach to the future form is adopted,…”146. However, as mentioned above, the scholars who argue for a temporal interpretation have to come up with an explanation of the various non-future, non-Indicative uses of the Future in the NT. Although making the claim that the historical development of a tense-form can only act as a supportive role, Campbell points to the diachronic development of the form to explain the nonIndicative use147. His main argument is from Evans’ assertion that the historical development demonstrates that the Future is “simply from expression of future action or situation as a qualified observation to its more confident prediction as a fact”148. Evan’s explanation for the nontemporal usage of the Future is worth recounting here. In response to Porter’s proposal of a non-temporal Future form, Evans attributes three motivating factors for this interpretation149: (1) The Future was growing out of the Subjunctive; (2) the functional overlap with the non-Indicative Moods and; (3) Intrusion into the sphere of linguistics of philosophical questions on the concept of futurity. In response to the first two points, one should also take note that Evans argues for an origin of the Future quite different from others. He McKay, A New Syntax, 52. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 140 and Porter, Verbal Aspect, 403. 146 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 134. 147 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 157, contrast 140. 148 Evans, Verbal Syntax, 39. 149 Evans, Verbal Syntax, 32-9. 144 145 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 157 argues that the special case of ɦƸƺ described above demonstrates a mixed history of the Future rather than a regular development like the other tense-forms. He claims that the Future “arises from aspectually marked forms and to that extent has an aspectual origin”150. However, the two uses of ɦƸƺ do not signify two possible aspectual origins, but rather two uses under Aktionsart categories (ingressive and durative). As mentioned above, Aktionsart is not grammaticalized by form but rather indicated by context. The mixed origin suggested by Moulton is not due to mixed usage, but rather to whether the form comes from the confusion with the Aorist Subjunctive or something similar to the Future of other IndoEuropean languages like Sanskrit151. Regarding the possible modal origin of the Future, Evans agrees with others that the Future is a late development, formed mainly from desideratives and Subjunctives. However, his view of desideratives is different from the others. He argues that linguists have mistaken the form as a Mood. Based on comparative grammar, he argues that this form expresses a verbal occurrence as an assertion. Therefore, he concludes that the seemingly functional overlap of the Future and the oblique mood is not a witness to functional equivalence in reality. The oblique usage of the Future is an expression of added certainty and factual quality of a future action. He asserts that the Greek verbal system has undergone a development from a more purely aspectual structure to express the temporal distinctions in the verb152. Thus although originally in the pre-historic period of Greek language development, the Future seems to be a member of the oblique Mood, “once the indicative mood begins to convey time values, a future tense becomes a possibility”153. However, if the Future Indicative went through a historical development from nonIndicative to Indicative (temporal), then what about the argument of the non-oblique desiderative as the origin of the Future? If this is the case, then the development of Future has gone through a process of Indicative (+Subjunctive) to Indicative (+Temporal). More work has to be done to make this argument convincing. Evans is quite negative and unsympathetic to the use of philosophical conceptions in the discussion of grammar. He contends that it is categorically different when we talk about the Future versus other tenses, saying that: Evans, Verbal Syntax, 37. Moulton, Prolegomena, 148-9 and Porter, Verbal Aspect, 403-4. 152 Evans, Verbal Syntax, 39. 153 Evans, Verbal Syntax, 39. 150 151 Francis G. H. Pang 158 Such observations are sensible in terms of logic, and indeed general interpretation of futurity as a mental construct. Yet they are not especially helpful for analysis of grammatical categories, manifesting a confusion of what we think of as absolute time with the grammatical category of tense154. He champions an approach to the problem of the Future from “a strictly linguistic viewpoint”155. However, he did not elaborate how this strictly linguistic approach is used. It should also be noted that the scholars that he argues against are linguists themselves and the discussion of linguistics, as in many other social sciences, is inevitably connected with philosophical concepts. Finally, Evans argues that Porter’s view of non-temporal Future is theory-driven, i.e. all tense-forms are non-temporal so the Future cannot be an exception. However, it is an oversimplification of Porter’s argument. The fact that there exists usages of Future form in non-future context is overwhelming and begs for an explanation156. Porter’s explanation is thus driven not by his system but by the data. The fact that there are so many exceptions to the temporal interpretation shapes his hypothesis of a non-temporal Future. Abductive reasoning is once again at work here. Thus, to summarize the discussion on the nature of the Future: Model Tense Aspect McKay Future [+intention] Porter None [+expectation] Fanning Future None Interpretive [punctiliar/durative] Olsen Future None [±telic] Campbell Future Perfective [±ingressive] 4. Conclusion As demonstrated above, the debate over the aspect of the Future generally circles around three points: the role of Aktionsart, the neutrality of the method and the historical development of the form. Whereas the model of Olsen and Campbell sometimes conflates Aktionsart and Evans, Verbal Syntax, 38. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 38. 156 The claim that Campbell made, that Porter’s theory treat the Future tense as nontemporal “simply for the purpose of fitting a predetermined theory”, (emphasis mine) and thus methodologically flawed is similarly unwarranted. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 153, n.49. 154 155 Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 159 aspect and as a result produces conflicting conclusions. Porter’s systemic functional model seems to have a more rigorous method, even though his take on non-temporality will continue to face heated criticism. The goal of the present study is to lay out the groundwork for a practitioner to test the validity of various aspect theories. Using one of the criteria suggested by Porter for evaluation of a linguistic model, the possible next step of this study is to test the inclusiveness of each model157. The same data should be used to apply to all models. The objective is to determine which model incorporates “the largest number of pertinent pieces of data with the fewest items excluded”158. However, this is out of the scope of this paper. Francis G.H. PANG McMaster Divinity College 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA L8S 4K1 [email protected] 157 Porter lists three criteria, whether a model (i) treats the data inclusively; (ii) has resulted in rational discourse and (iii) provides creative and provocative conclusions that offer potential for further research. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 5-6. 158 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 5.