Stephen H. Levinsohn, «Aspect and Prominence in the Synoptic Accounts of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem», Vol. 23 (2010) 161-174
Porter’s analysis of the prominence conveyed by the aorist, imperfect and present is contrasted with Longacre’s claims about the same tenseforms. Both are wrong in equating respectively “foreground” (Porter) and “background” (Longacre) with the imperfect. Relevance Theory claims that non-default forms may result in a variety of cognitive effects. This explains why imperfectives correlate with background, yet sometimes have foregrounding effects. Additional non-default forms and structures can also be accommodated, such as inchoative aorist "erxanto" and the combination of aorist "egeneto" and a temporal expression. Finally, a non-default form or structure may give prominence not to the event concerned, but to the following event(s).
170 Stephen H. Levinsohn
continued to cry out as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Because the inchoative
aorist is also a non-default tense-form, its use in Luke 19,37 has a similar
effect, one difference being that, as soon as the praising begins, some of
the Pharisees in the crowd attempt to stop it (v. 39)36.
In the same way, the Relevance Theory approach to markedness allows
the combination found in Luke 19,29 of aorist ἐγένετο and an aorist
temporal expression to have a similar effect to the HPs in the parallel
passage in Mark 11,1-2 (see sec. F below).
In summary, distinguishing between the “meaning” of a tense-form
such as the imperfect, which remains basically unchanged, and the
“overtones” associated with it, which vary with the context, results in
an approach to prominence that is intuitively more satisfying than one
in which a fixed degree of prominence is assigned to each tense-form.
It is helpful, too, to distinguish between occasions when the tense-form
is the most relevant way of portraying an event and those in which it is
not, as this explains why the same tense-form sometimes seems to be a
foregrounding device while, in other passages, it does not.
F) Which event is given prominence by a non-default form?
This final section reaffirms that, when a non-default form or structure
is employed, prominence is often given not to the event concerned, but to
the following event(s)37. This is particularly evident when the HP is used.
Although Porter affirms, “the present form draws added attention to
the action to which it refers”38, Callow insists that, particularly in Mark
and John, the HP “does not draw attention to the event which the HP
verb itself refers to, as those events, in themselves, are not particularly
important --- to go, to say, to gather together, to see, etc. ... [I]t has a
cataphoric function; that is, it points on beyond itself into the narrative,
it draws attention to what is following”39.
So, in Mark 1,21 (“they enter [εἰσπορεύονται] into Capernaum”),
“it is not the action of entering Capernaum itself that is particularly
36
“They think that Jesus should restrain the fervour of his disciples” (I.H. Marshall, The
Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. [Exeter 1978]) 716.
37
See Levinsohn Self-Instruction §5.4 for discussion of this point.
38
S.E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (Sheffield 1992) 31.
39
J. Callow, The Historic Present in Mark (Horsleys Green, UK 1996) 2. For further dis-
cussion of this point, see Levinsohn Discourse Features 202-203 and Fanning Contribution
17-19. Westfall (Analysis of Prominence 77) also allows for the “domain of prominence” to
be “at the level of couplet, paragraph, section or discourse”.