28 Jody A. Barnard such as the grammatical system itself”107. This is indeed a great weakness of Porter’s aspectual approach, and throws doubt on the idea that an author was invariably free to select tenses on the basis of what he wanted to emphasize. It is a pity that Silva does not develop his comment about the grammatical system further since there is probably a lot to be learned from such an investigation. Nevertheless there is at least one grammatical factor, relevant to both miracle and pronouncement stories, which supports his comment. As is well known, “when one transfers the words of direct speech to indi- rect speech, despite several other changes which may be made (usually regarding person), the verbal aspect of direct speech is retained”108. In other words, in the event of indirect discourse, the rules of the language have already determined which verbal aspect will be used. With regard to Acts 16, for example, Porter suggests that ὑπάρχω (v. 3) is imperfective (ὑπῆρχεν) to reinforce the reason for Timothy’s circumcision109, but the imperfective aspect had already been determined by virtue of its position within indirect discourse110. 5. Conclusion This study has attempted to engage with Porter’s theory of aspectual prominence and evaluate the possibility that prominence was a factor in Luke’s appropriation of verbal aspect. His theory has been tested against the points of emphasis and climactic junctures evident in Luke’s miracle and pronouncement stories, which seem to be based on a variety of sour- ces (Mark, Q and L). With regard to the miracle stories it was discovered that the aorist ten- se is typically employed at the climax of the discourse, which is entirely contrary to Porter’s proposal. It was also seen that it is not unusual to find Porter’s foreground and frontground tenses in background contexts. These findings, therefore, are more consistent with the models of aspec- tual prominence advocated by Wallace, Fanning and Levinsohn. With regard to the pronouncement stories it was discovered that many of the prominent points or climactic sayings employ the present Silva, ‘Response’, 79; cf. B.M. Fanning, “Approaches to Verbal Aspect in New 107 Testament Greek: Issues in Definition and Method”, in Porter and Carson (eds.), Greek Language and Linguistics, 50-53. Porter, Idioms, 269 (italics mine); cf. Wallace, Grammar, 457. 108 Porter, Aspect, 93. 109 This does not necessarily mean that the direct discourse was imperfect however, since 110 an imperfect sometimes stands for a present; see M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples, Translated by J. Smith (Rome 1963) 119, n.12.