8 David I. Yoon (almost) all who follow aspect theory essentially agree upon. Here, I will duplicate the formal definitions provided by the major writers on this subject and summarize the essence of each. Porter defines aspect as: “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”15. Campbell’s “user-friendly”16 definition is: “‘viewpoint.’ This refers to the way in which the author/speaker chooses to depict an activity or state, the usual opposition being ‘internal’ (imperfective) and ‘external’ (perfective)”17. Fanning also defines aspect as: “that category in the grammar of the verb which reflects the focus or viewpoint of the speaker in regard to the action or condition which the verb describes”18. The common notion in all these definitions is that aspect has to do with the writer’s choice to depict a particular verbal process for his/her own purposes. It has nothing to do with how the verbal process actually takes place, but rather how the writer wants to convey it. There are three aspects in Hellenistic Greek that require further explanation. a) Perfective aspect. This base-line aspect is conveyed primarily by the aorist tense-form, conceptualizes the action as complete and whole from the author/speaker’s subjective viewpoint and does not indicate how the process actually occurred. The traditional understanding of the aorist in Aktionsart can be illustrated by a definition provided by Wallace. Although he quotes Fanning’s definition initially (“an occurrence in summary, viewed as a whole from the outside, without regard for the internal make-up of the occurrence”), he states that the aorist is comparable to “taking a snapshot of the action,” comparing it to the imperfect which is more of a “motion picture, portraying the action as it unfolds”19. He also rather perplexingly includes temporal factors by stating “the aorist usually indicates past time with reference to the time 15 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 88. 16 Campbell, among others, is sympathetic to the “non-specialist,” and thus provides what he considers a more accessible definition to help (Constantine Campbell, Verbal Aspect, the Indicative Mood, and Narrative: Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament [SBG 13; New York: 2007] 8). 17 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 8. However, I am not sure if “viewpoint” is the best word to capture the meaning of aspect. In fact, the concept of aspect cannot be captured in simply a word, but a statement. It seems that one difficulty of accepting a two-aspect system is that the concept of aspect is bound in the term “viewpoint,” but aspect seems to be more than simply viewpoint, but the perspective of the writer in depicting a particular verb to take place. Despite my brief objection, I think in a broad sense all writers agree with the general concept of aspect. 18 Buist Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (OTM; Oxford: 1990) 84. 19 Wallace, Greek Grammar, 555.