Tense, Time, Aspect and the Ancient Greek Verb

Nearly every – no, every – Greek grammar and course book, even the most comprehensive (in English, at any rate), gives a very skimpy, perfunctory and unhelpful account — insofar as it gives any account at all – of what ‘aspect’ is and how exactly it is related to verb tense and time (which tend to b...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jerome Moran
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press 2016-10-01
Series:The Journal of Classics Teaching
Online Access:https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S205863101600026X/type/journal_article
Description
Summary:Nearly every – no, every – Greek grammar and course book, even the most comprehensive (in English, at any rate), gives a very skimpy, perfunctory and unhelpful account — insofar as it gives any account at all – of what ‘aspect’ is and how exactly it is related to verb tense and time (which tend to be conflated). Most of the books and articles on the subject of the aspect of the Greek verb are accessible only to the professional philologist, and can't therefore be easily applied by non-specialists to the understanding of the actual usage of Greek writers or to the imitation of their usage when translating into their language. This article sets out to remedy this situation by giving a clear and (within limits) comprehensive explanation of aspect as it applies to the Greek verb.
ISSN:2058-6310