42 Eric R. Naizer 2. An Overview of Porter’s Verbal Aspect Theory Traditionally it has been understood that the main characteristics gram- maticalized in the Greek verb tense endings are time and/or Aktionsart (kind of action)2. Contrary to this longstanding position, there has been growing acknowledgement that the Greek verbal tense system is instead an aspectual system. According to likely the most influential advocate of this particular perspective, Stanley E. Porter describes verbal aspect as portraying, “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 process”3. Buist M. Fanning describes aspects by explaining that, “Aspects pertain…to the focus of the speaker with reference to the action or state which the verb describes, his way of viewing the occurrence and its make-up, without any necessary regard to the (actual or perceived) nature of the situation itself”4. These definitions offered by Porter and Fanning contend that contrary to the conventional grammatical catego- ries, the morphology of the Greek verb does not primarily indicate the time when the action took place, or even the kind of action (Aktionsart). Instead, they argue that the Greek verb endings portray the author’s perspective of the process through a subjective choice based on a series of options that each reflect the way the author chooses to represent, view, or conceive of the process (aspect)5. The author thus makes a decision as to which aspect is chosen on each occasion a verb is used in order to convey a particular viewpoint regardless of time or Aktionsart. Within the long-established paradigm of expressing time or Aktions- art, grammarians have traditionally approached the Greek verbal system 2 See A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Histori- cal Research (Nashville 1934); F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and R.W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian literature (Chicago 1961); D. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids 1996). 3 See also S. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (Sheffield 1992); K.L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach (New York 1994) 27: “Aspect in ancient Greek is that category of the verb system by means of which an author (or speaker) shows how he views each event or activity he mentions in relation to its context.” Cf. B. Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge 1976) 4. 4 Buist M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford 1990) 50. It should be noted that contrary to Porter, Fanning believes that time is an element of the indicative mood. For further discussion of verbal aspect and evaluation of the works of Porter and Fanning see S. Porter and D.A. Carson (eds.), Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research (JSNTSS 80; Sheffield 1993); K. L. McKay, “Time and Aspect in New Testament Greek,” NovT 34 (1992) 209-228. 5 See McKay, “Time and Aspect,” 209-28.