Filología Neotestamentaria - Vol 23 (2010) Levinsohn, Stephen H., Aspect and Prominence in the Synoptic Accounts of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem (2010)

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).