4 Jody A. Barnard of the word or clause and, like the discourse peak, may be signalled by “any device whatever which gives certain events, participants, or objects more significance than others in the same context”2. As Callow explains, “the devices by which prominence is signalled are legion”3, but is verbal aspect one of them? 1.2. Verbal Aspect Not so long ago a definition of verbal aspect would have been consi- derably difficult due to the fact that it meant different things to different people. But, as Carson celebrates4, the definition of verbal aspect is now beginning to experience a consensus. Porter defines verbal aspect as a semantic (meaning) category by which a speaker or writer grammaticalizes (i.e. represents a meaning by choice of a word form) a [subjective] perspec- tive on an action by the selection of a particular tense-form in the verbal system5. He then identifies the following three aspects in the Greek verbal sys- tem6. 1. Perfective (or external) aspect, grammaticalized by the aorist tense, conveys action in summary, as a complete occurrence, without regard for its internal unfolding. 2. Imperfective (or internal) aspect, grammaticalized by the present and imperfect tenses7, conveys action in progress, the internal structure of the action is in view and conveyed as a process in ongoing development. K. Callow, Discourse Considerations in Translating the Word of God (Grand Rapids 2 1974) 50. Callow, Discourse, 51. 3 D.A. Carson, “An Introduction to the Porter / Fanning Debate”, in S.E. Porter and 4 D.A. Carson (eds.), Biblical Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research (Sheffield 1993) 21-22. S.E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (Sheffield 1992) 21; cf. B.M. Fanning, 5 Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford 1990) 84-85. Porter, Idioms, 20-25; cf. D.B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics (Grand 6 Rapids 1996) 499-501; Fanning, Aspect, 86-120; K.L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach (New York 1994) 7-8, 27-34. Porter distinguishes between the present and the imperfect with the concept of 7 remoteness; “the imperfect”, he says, “is best understood as the less heavily marked imperfective form, grammaticalizing [+remoteness], i.e. it is used in contexts where the