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 21 Porter, “Aspect Theory and Lexicography”, 216. 22 Porter treats aspectuality and finiteness as the two major systems in the Greek ver- bal 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 net- work 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 grammati- cal 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.