Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 135 verbal system to the discussion of the NT Greek aspect goes back to the early 1960s29. His definition of aspect is very similar to what we have described in this paper. He takes it as the category in the Greek verb system in which the speaker regards the action in relation to its context30. He identifies three easily distinguishable aspects (imperfective, aorist and perfect) with the future aspect as some kind of anomaly31. Aspect is distinguished from Aktionsart in McKay’s works. Traditional categories of the Aktionsarten are not used in his work. He relates the kind of action to the lexical distinction in verb types, which he argues is analogous to aspect32. He distinguishes two kinds of verbs in terms of lexical factor: action verbs (activities that are relatively definitive) and stative verbs (activities that refer to state of being) but stresses the importance of context in determining the translation of an aspectual form (which he calls realizations)33. McKay also boldly moves away from the popular notion of morphological time-indication, blaming that on the assumption of Western culture and the influence of Latin grammar34. This notion of avoiding mixture of aspect and temporality in tense terminology and equating tense-forms with aspectual categories is considered by some later aspect theorists as foundational35. Thus McKay’s model can be described as: Aspect imperfective aorist perfect future Primary Present Aorist Perfect Future [+intention] Secondary Imperfect Pluperfect Future-Perfect 29 His first work on the subject dates all the way back to 1965. Some of his works in the field including, K.L. McKay, “Syntax in Exegesis”, Tyndale Bulletin 23 (1972) 39-57; “On the Perfect and Other Aspects in New Testament Greek”, NT 23.4 (1981) 289-329; “Aspect in Imperatival Constructions in New Testament Greek”, NT 27.3 (1985) 201-26; his response to Porter and Fanning’s works: “Time and Aspect in New Testament”, NT 34 (1992) 209-28. See also K.L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach, (Studies in Biblical Greek 5; NY 1994). 30 McKay, “Syntax of Exegesis”, 44 and also McKay “On the Perfect and Other Aspects”, 20. 31 Emphasis original, McKay, A New Syntax, 27 and his other works. 32 McKay, A New Syntax, 27-8. 33 McKay, A New Syntax, 29. 34 Decker points out that McKay argues more prominently against morphological time-indication in his later works. McKay, “Syntax in Exegesis”, 45 and Decker, Temporal Deixis, 18. 35 Porter admits that his methodology is inspired by McKay’s work in many ways. Fanning and Evans also draw upon McKay, but mostly in their analysis of individual tense-form. Porter and Pitts, “Recent Researches”, 216-7; see also Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 93, 102, 104, 121-2, 147-8, etc. and Evans, Verbal Syntax, 26, 54, 146, etc.