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Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek

Constantine R. Campbell
Jan 14, 2009
Series: Volume 12 - 2009

Constantine R. Campbell, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek. Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, 2008. $16.99. Paperback. 159 pp. ISBN 978-0-310-29083-4

An introductory primer to the verbal aspect of the Greek of the New Testament has been
desperately needed for some time. The learned debates among grammarians like K. L.
McKay, Stanley Porter, and Buist Fanning have for the most part remained in fairly narrow
academic ivory towers, while theological students have gleaned only the barest of essentials
on the topic even in the newest Greek grammars. Little wonder that scholarly commentaries
and monographs have at times fared little better. A succinct, clear summary of the most
assured results of the last quarter-century of study in verbal aspect, complete with numerous New Testament
illustrations and even exercises on which students can hone their skills, with "answers" in the back of the book,
could go a long way toward dispelling the darkness.
In format, this is precisely what Campbell's slim volume undertakes. Unfortunately, while acknowledging
dissenting views among grammarians, Campbell popularizes his own somewhat idiosyncratic approach, defended at
length in two tightly-packed, highly technical monographs, so that if the latter prove misguided in significant ways,
so will this primer.
Campbell opts for identifying only two kinds of verbal aspect-perfective and imperfective. The former represents
the outsider's global or overall viewpoint on an action, like the view of a parade from the helicopter; the latter
reflects the insider's viewpoint, like the spectator on the street corner watching the parade go by. Unlike
Aktionsart, which denotes the kind of action in the real word, aspect represents the perspective on the action
chosen by the narrator, whether or not it corresponds to reality. It is also important to distinguish between
semantics (meaning that is automatically encoded in a particular word or grammatical form) and pragmatics
(meaning that is allowed by a word or form but required only when certain deictic or contextual indicators are
present.
Campbell briefly surveys the main technical studies that have contributed to the state of the current discussion of
New Testament Greek verbal aspect, concluding that the two main unresolved debates are whether or not tense is
an issue for semantics or pragmatics and whether or not there are two or three verbal aspects. Campbell
cautiously opts for the pragmatic perspective on tense (rightly, in my opinion) and confidently for only two verbal
aspects (wrongly, I think).
As he proceeds to discuss these aspects and the relations of the various Greek tenses to them, Campbell concludes
that semantically the aorist tense, reflecting perfective aspect, grammaticalizes remoteness and "is often used to
outline the skeletal structure of a narrative" (p. 38). The future tense also belongs under perfective aspect, but
unlike the other tenses actually does denote time as part of its semantics, not merely when contextual indicators
support it.
The imperfective aspect is represented by the present and imperfect tenses, which semantically convey proximity

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Denver Seminary > Articles > Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek

The imperfective aspect is represented by the present and imperfect tenses, which semantically convey proximity
rather than remoteness. They often characterize the discourse parts of a narrative. The historical present affords
a classic example. The imperfect tense shares impefective aspect with the present tense but remoteness with the
aorist tense. It thus conveys supplementary, "offline" material in narratives, not as significant as the skeletal
structure identifiable by the aorists.
Campbell acknowledges that his most innovative contribution comes by identifying the perfect and pluperfect forms
not as perfective (as with others who use only two aspects) or as stative (by those who see three aspects) but as
imperfectives. But he appeals to his two bigger books for the detailed argumentation. He notes that to justify
separating stative aspect off as a third category of aspect, McKay insists that subjects of perfect tense verbs are
always seen as responsible for the actions of the verbs, while Porter alleges they bring about new states of affairs.
Campbell selects examples from the New Testament where these generalizations seem not to apply. The parallels
between present and perfect tense forms, on the other hand, suggest to him that the perfect tense belongs under
imperfective aspect. Different from the present tense, however, the perfect semantically encodes heightened
proximity. "As such, it might be appropriate to think of the perfect as a super-present" (p. 51).
The rest of Campbell's slim volume then reviews what has been presented under the headings of the two aspects
(followed by the special case of the perfect and pluperfect), only this time proceeding tense-by-tense throughout.
Pragmatically encoded special uses of each tense are treated en route, like historical, inceptive, conative, and
gnomic forms. Numerous New Testament examples are presented and briefly discussed, with additional texts
provided for the student to analyze in terms of tense and aspect, semantic and pragmatic encoding, and
significance for exegesis. The same is true for a quick tour of the non-indicative moods, showing how verbal
aspect works more or less the same with them as with the indicative mood.
The book ends with a concluding postscript that sums up: whereas in English tenses, time is primary and spatial
relationships secondary, it is the reverse in Greek. A glossary of key technical terms in the books and the answers
to the biblical exercises follow. Throughout the volume, charts and diagrams help make Campbell's viewpoints
much clearer than they would have been otherwise.
As noted at the beginning of this review, this book looks exactly like a primer on verbal aspect should appear-in
terms of level of difficulty, size, abundant use of Scripture and examples for practice. But recent introductory or
intermediate grammars that have begun to introduce verbal aspect to theological students have heretofore
identified three aspects-aoristic (which functions like Campbell's perfective), imperfective, and stative (also called
perfective, which grammaticalizes the perspective on an action regularly taught to students in the context of the
perfect and pluperfect tenses-a past action which has given rise to an existing state of affairs, like the perspective)
.
Having read the first of Campbell's two bigger books, on aspect in the indicative mood, I can say that I am not
convinced he has made his case either for limiting the number of aspects to two nor for assigning perfect and
pluperfect forms to imperfective aspect even if we granted his narrowing the field to two aspects. (His second
bigger book, on the non-indicative mood, is sufficiently dependent on his first, if this little book is an accurate
reflection of it, that presumably it could not on its own overturn problems attaching to the first). The features that
suggest parallels between the present and the perfect tenses form only one half of the story. An equal number of
features create parallels with the aorist-hence the old, rough and ready summary of the perfect as "past action
with ongoing results." The features in McKay and Porter that Campbell dismisses are not really at the heart of
what the perfect tense is about, nor is it obvious that Campbell's counterexamples even are exceptions to the
norms. The use of nomenclature which overlaps but conflicts in meaning with those who adopts a three-aspect
approach makes Campbell's work even more confusing for the novice. Campbell's argument that the two-pronged

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Denver Seminary > Articles > Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek

"kind of action" that the perfect tense represents, which others use as grounds for separating the perfect off into
stative aspect, rightly belongs only to Aktionsart and not also to aspect fails to account for the fact that Aktionsart
and aspect can match each other when viewpoints agree with reality.
Other problems attach to Campbell's use of the concepts of remoteness and proximity. Studies of verbal aspect
that discuss "marking" point out that the imperfective aspect is more highly marked (stressed, highlighted) than
the aoristic (what Campbell calls perfective). So while, with Campbell, it is generally the case that the skeletal
structural of a narrative will be conveyed by aorist tense verbs, it is precisely because there is no special emphasis
being given to them in so doing. This is just "what happened." But the shift to an imperfect tense verb normally
suggests more attention being given to that action for some reason rather than less. These are scarcely
supplemental, off-line activities but more heavily marked ones. It would seem, then, that it is misleading to call
them remote in any sense other than a temporal one, which brings us back to pragmatics rather than semantics
(unless one follows Fanning and sees time as still inherently-semantically-encoded in tense forms), which Campbell
does not want to use in describing the essence of a tense.
In short, had Porter or McKay produced a book of this format and layout but reflecting their understanding of
verbal aspect, I would have tried to find a way to require it of my students. Had Fanning done so in light of his
understanding, there would have been some areas where I would have demurred, but I would have still made it a
"recommended" even if not required text. But since Campbell's understanding of verbal aspect is furthest from my
own and because of the complexity of trying to explain to students encountering this topic for the first time all of
the options but then asking them to use a textbook with arguably the least likely of the options, while still mentally
holding the rest in view, I can include it only in my bibliographies as a new work important to know about.
Craig Blomberg, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of New Testament
Denver Seminary
December 2008
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