Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Scott Lawson
Posts: 450
Joined: June 9th, 2011, 6:36 pm

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by Scott Lawson »

Scott Lawson wrote:However he does also list four occurences of the perfect imperative and yet leaves out σιώπα which Robertson includes. Why?
Ahh....I see where my mistake is. σιώπα is actually a present imperative. I didn't look close enough at what Robertson said on page 908, 4, lines 13-15.
Scott Lawson
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by David Lim »

Scott Lawson wrote:Recently, I've been hanging out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rubbin' shoulders with Robertson and Smyth and David's question on aspect jerked me back to the good old 21st century where I shook hands again with Mounce, Wallace and Campbell. Guess what! They connect aspect with the imperative!

Mounce says, "the imperative occurs in the present and aorist tenses, and its only significance is aspect;" Cf. pg. 310. However he does also list four occurences of the perfect imperative and yet leaves out σιώπα which Robertson includes. Why? In Roberston's list he includes ἔρρωσο at Acts 23:30 from the Textus Receptus and thus gives examples of four different words that are perfect imperatives. Mounce gives four passages with perfect imperatives with ἴστε occurring twice, once at Eph. 5:5 and once at James1:19. Has Mounce overlooked σιώπα or what is it that I'm missing?
I would be curious to see if they mentioned any of the sort of examples that I listed, where the present and aorist imperatives seem well interchangeable, and either argue that they truly are or explain the distinction in each case. Unfortunately I do not have any except Smyth, and I am hardly convinced by him. If you noticed, I chose to ignore "ιστε" because all the forms for "οιδα" are in the perfect (or past perfect) tense but have essentially present (or aorist) tense meaning, and the actual perfect tense is represented by "εγνωκα". I am not sure whether "ερρωσο" can count as a good example also, because salutations and valedictions may not necessarily obey the same grammar. So we are left with so few examples of the perfect imperative that I would prefer to discuss the present and aorist ones first. And yes, it is "πεφιμωσο" that is the perfect imperative, not "σιωπα", but this presents yet another pair of imperatives with seemingly irrelevant tenses.
Scott Lawson wrote:Wallace indicates that with the aorist imperative, the force is generally to command the action as a whole, without focusing on duration, repetition, etc. and that in keeping with its aspectual force, the aorist puts forth a summary command. With the present, he indicates that the force is generally to command the action as an ongoing process. This is in keeping with the present's aspect, which portrays an internal perspective. Now that I've reintroduced myself to Mounce, Wallace and Campbell I'll have to rub shoulders with them for a while to get these ideas sorted out.
I would also be glad if anyone else could either confirm or reject my understanding of the imperative. Here are a few relevant examples that would need explanation:
[Matt 3:3] "ουτος γαρ εστιν ο ρηθεις υπο ησαιου του προφητου λεγοντος φωνη βοωντος εν τη ερημω ετοιμασατε την οδον κυριου ευθειας ποιειτε τας τριβους αυτου"
[Rom 6:13] "μηδε παριστανετε τα μελη υμων οπλα αδικιας τη αμαρτια αλλα παραστησατε εαυτους τω θεω ως εκ νεκρων ζωντας και τα μελη υμων οπλα δικαιοσυνης τω θεω"
[Rom 15:11] "και παλιν αινειτε τον κυριον παντα τα εθνη και επαινεσατε αυτον παντες οι λαοι"
[1 Pet 2:17] "παντας τιμησατε την αδελφοτητα αγαπησατε τον θεον φοβεισθε τον βασιλεα τιματε" (The NU text and Stephanus' TR has "αγαπατε" instead of "αγαπησατε" but all have the imperative "honour" in different tenses.)
δαυιδ λιμ
MAubrey
Posts: 1091
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by MAubrey »

David Lim wrote:I would also be glad if anyone else could either confirm or reject my understanding of the imperative. Here are a few relevant examples that would need explanation:
[Matt 3:3] "ουτος γαρ εστιν ο ρηθεις υπο ησαιου του προφητου λεγοντος φωνη βοωντος εν τη ερημω ετοιμασατε την οδον κυριου ευθειας ποιειτε τας τριβους αυτου"
[Rom 6:13] "μηδε παριστανετε τα μελη υμων οπλα αδικιας τη αμαρτια αλλα παραστησατε εαυτους τω θεω ως εκ νεκρων ζωντας και τα μελη υμων οπλα δικαιοσυνης τω θεω"
[Rom 15:11] "και παλιν αινειτε τον κυριον παντα τα εθνη και επαινεσατε αυτον παντες οι λαοι"
[1 Pet 2:17] "παντας τιμησατε την αδελφοτητα αγαπησατε τον θεον φοβεισθε τον βασιλεα τιματε" (The NU text and Stephanus' TR has "αγαπατε" instead of "αγαπησατε" but all have the imperative "honour" in different tenses.)
There isn't a whole lot of agreement on the distinction between the imperfective and perfective imperative forms, but I can give you my take on the question. As usual, though, I'm inclined to view differences if morphological structure as meaningful. My starting point for this is the basic distinction between imperfective and perfective aspect: the latter involves internal temporal structure of some kind and the former does not. The other issue keeping in mind is the influence of frequency on the author and the probability that frequency could have on usage. My own views are inline with those of Rijksbaron (2006).
Matt 3:3 wrote:ουτος γαρ εστιν ο ρηθεις υπο ησαιου του προφητου λεγοντος φωνη βοωντος εν τη ερημω ετοιμασατε την οδον κυριου ευθειας ποιειτε τας τριβους αυτου
ἑτοιμάζω is probably a result of frequency effects. Across all inflectional forms, there are extremely few imperfectives to begin with (45 imperfectives out of 298). And in the imperative, the Apostolic Fathers have one, Josephus has one, the Septuagint has four, and the New Testament has one. Conversely, there are 43 perfective imperative. The verbs inherent inclination for perfective aspect may have influenced the choice of the writer. I would also expect that perfective aspect is always going to be the default category used generally speaking and that the imperfective would be used to mark more specific semantic states-of-affairs.
As for ποιεῖτε, following the basic semantic distinction between imperfective and perfective aspect, it is simply a matter of determining what that internal structure is. In this case, I would probably say that it is an inchoative.
Rom 6:13 wrote:μηδε παριστανετε τα μελη υμων οπλα αδικιας τη αμαρτια αλλα παραστησατε εαυτους τω θεω ως εκ νεκρων ζωντας και τα μελη υμων οπλα δικαιοσυνης τω θεω
The negated imperfective παριστάνετε implies the cessation of a an activity that has been regularly performed--the event has internal temporal structure. The perfective παραστήσατε makes no references to the internal structure of the event and reflects a more generalize command.
Rom 15:11 wrote:και παλιν αινειτε τον κυριον παντα τα εθνη και επαινεσατε αυτον παντες οι λαοι
The verb αἰνέω when used in the imperative, has exactly the opposite distribution of ἑτοιμάζω. There are 37 imperfective imperatives and only 8 perfective imperatives. But I would also say that this instances of αἰνεῖτε as an LXX quote is also inchoative, since the Gentiles would likely have been viewed by the write as needing to begin praising the Lord, thus referring to the internal structure of the verb. Conversely, again, ἐπαινεσάτωσαν simply makes no reference to internal temporal structure.
1 Pet 2:17 wrote:παντας τιμησατε την αδελφοτητα αγαπησατε τον θεον φοβεισθε τον βασιλεα τιματε
The perfective at the beginning involves a generalized command and thus there's no need to reference internal temporal structure. The imperfective imperatives that follow all involves situations that Paul wants to be followed constantly and thus the imperfective.

Now these are just my musings. I have no doubt things are more complicated than that and I've never studied, but its always better assume that morphological contrast means something. Otherwise the language users would have gotten rid of it long ago.

Other possible explanations would likely involve issues of pragmatics. In many languages, unlike English, where these is a morphological contrast between perfective and imperfective aspects, there is often a preference for one aspect over the other for commands depending on acquaintances vs. close friends, the respective rank of two the speech participants along with their relationship. In Russian, for example, in a situation where a parent was commanding a boy to clean his room, the imperfective would be used. But in a situation where a teacher commands a student to turn in a paper, the perfective would be used (Levinson 2005). These are issues that I've wanted to examine for Greek, but haven't had the opportunity, though as I understand Bakker (1966) does deal with these issues to some extent (I read Bakker about four years ago) and I would expect that they're discussed in Fantin (2010), as well.

Works Cited:
Bakker, Willem. 1966. Greek Imperative: An investigation Into the aspectual differences between the present and aorist imperatives in Greek prayer from Homer up to the present day. Amsterdam: Hakkert.

Fantin, Joseph D. 2010. The Greek imperative mood in the New Testament: A cognitive communicative approach. New York: Peter Lang.

Levinson, Dmitry. 2005. Aspect in negative imperatives and genitive negation: a unified analysis of two phenomena in Slavic languages. unpub.ms. Stanford University. Palo Alto, California. pdf: http://www.stanford.edu/~dmitryle/Levin ... gation.pdf

Rijksbaron, Albert. 2006. The syntax and semantics of the verb in Classical Greek: An introduction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by David Lim »

MAubrey wrote:There isn't a whole lot of agreement on the distinction between the imperfective and perfective imperative forms, but I can give you my take on the question. As usual, though, I'm inclined to view differences if morphological structure as meaningful. My starting point for this is the basic distinction between imperfective and perfective aspect: the latter involves internal temporal structure of some kind and the former does not. The other issue keeping in mind is the influence of frequency on the author and the probability that frequency could have on usage. My own views are inline with those of Rijksbaron (2006).

[...]
Since you say that the frequency distribution of each individual verb affects its usage, I probably cannot disagree. But may I suggest that the existence of morphological structure is not always reflective of a current distinction in meaning? There may indeed have been some kind of distinction before but which has been lost, though the forms have remained. So I would not assume a necessary distinction as a starting point.

Actually I attempted to select the best examples where it is difficult to divide the imperatives according to generality versus specificity, but as in your explanation, it is always possible to argue that there is still some kind of difference. However the quotations from the LXX are all parallel pairs which clearly refer to the same thing. To make ready the way of the lord is just really the same as to make his paths straight. Likewise for all the nations (not Gentiles alone) to praise the lord is just the same as for all the peoples to praise him. So I am not really convinced by the suggestion that of the two imperatives one is inchoative but the other is not.

As for Rom 6:13, the supposed "rule" for the negated imperative implying a command of cessation does not hold. See Matt 23:3 where the present "μη ποιειτε" clearly does not mean "stop doing". I would also say that the example of Matt 6:19 in Funk's Grammar does not mean "stop storing up treasures upon the earth" but simply "do not store up treasures upon the earth", because the parallel imperative is "store up treasures in the heaven", and there is clearly no difference between them except that one is negative.

And for 1 Pet 2:17, I do not see why any of the present imperatives involves situations. All of them are just as generic as the first, "honour all [men]", and, if you count it, the second, "love the brotherhood". To honour the king is a part of honouring all men, albeit an important part. And I think "τον θεον φοβεισθε" is as generic as one can get for the exhortation "fear God".
MAubrey wrote:Other possible explanations would likely involve issues of pragmatics. In many languages, unlike English, where these is a morphological contrast between perfective and imperfective aspects, there is often a preference for one aspect over the other for commands depending on acquaintances vs. close friends, the respective rank of two the speech participants along with their relationship. In Russian, for example, in a situation where a parent was commanding a boy to clean his room, the imperfective would be used. But in a situation where a teacher commands a student to turn in a paper, the perfective would be used (Levinson 2005). These are issues that I've wanted to examine for Greek, but haven't had the opportunity, though as I understand Bakker (1966) does deal with these issues to some extent (I read Bakker about four years ago) and I would expect that they're discussed in Fantin (2010), as well.
Is there any way I can access those works? The link you provided leads to a "page not found".
δαυιδ λιμ
MAubrey
Posts: 1091
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by MAubrey »

David Lim wrote:Since you say that the frequency distribution of each individual verb affects its usage, I probably cannot disagree. But may I suggest that the existence of morphological structure is not always reflective of a current distinction in meaning? There may indeed have been some kind of distinction before but which has been lost, though the forms have remained. So I would not assume a necessary distinction as a starting point.
That is indeed possible, but I view it as unlikely. The contrast between perfective and imperfective has existed in the imperative for 1000 years before the New Testament and 2000 years after the New Testament up to this very day in Modern Greek. I find it highly improbable that it would not have been dropped out at any point during that time.
David Lim wrote:The quotations from the LXX are all parallel pairs which clearly refer to the same thing. To make ready the way of the lord is just really the same as to make his paths straight. Likewise for all the nations (not Gentiles alone) to praise the lord is just the same as for all the peoples to praise him. So I am not really convinced by the suggestion that of the two imperatives one is inchoative but the other is not.
You're confusing the choice of a speaker with external reality here. Virtually any event or situation can be referred to by imperfective or perfective aspect. The speaker/author makes a choice to present a given event as either perfective or imperfective. In this case, the event referred to by aorist is unmarked may very well be inchoative as well. The write simply chose to not to conceive of it as such.
David Lim wrote:As for Rom 6:13, the supposed "rule" for the negated imperative implying a command of cessation does not hold. See Matt 23:3 where the present "μη ποιειτε" clearly does not mean "stop doing". I would also say that the example of Matt 6:19 in Funk's Grammar does not mean "stop storing up treasures upon the earth" but simply "do not store up treasures upon the earth", because the parallel imperative is "store up treasures in the heaven", and there is clearly no difference between them except that one is negative.
I never said there was a rule. There is a popular idea that negated commands involve a cessation of activity, but don't be so quick to assume that I adhere to it. I regularly separate myself from traditional views. What is relevant for Romans 6:13 is not necessary for Matthew 23:3. The only "rule" that I put forward is that imperfective imperatives have internal temporal structure. Matthew 23:3 is iterative and Matt 6:19 is constative. That's clearly visible if you look at the clauses independently of the negation. In both cases, I would paraphrase the commands as "do not do this thing that you would otherwise do whether occasionally (Matt 23:3) or regularly (Matt 6:19)."
David Lim wrote:And for 1 Pet 2:17, I do not see why any of the present imperatives involves situations.

I don't know what this means. All of the clauses in 1 Peter 2:17 involve situations--clauses in general refer to situatoins: things happen.
David Lim wrote:All of them are just as generic as the first, "honour all [men]", and, if you count it, the second, "love the brotherhood". To honour the king is a part of honouring all men, albeit an important part. And I think "τον θεον φοβεισθε" is as generic as one can get for the exhortation "fear God".
So you say and you're not particularly convincing. I'd say you're grasping at straws to avoid finding semantic difference. It's perfectly reasonable that the following three clauses involve constative or habitual action. Or do you think that Paul didn't want Timothy to honor the king and fear God on a regular/constant basis? The fact that "honor all" does not involve internal temporal structure, by definition, makes it more generic than the other commands that follow.
David Lim wrote:Is there any way I can access those works? The link you provided leads to a "page not found".
Sorry, I can't help you there. That citation was from a paper that I wrote on Russian syntax back in 2008. The other books, would be accessible through interlibrary loan, though.

Speaking of papers, I have to go write one now, so I can't reply again any time soon. I don't expect to convince you. I know this is a debated area and I may very well be wrong about the details, but on the question of whether there is a distinction, the morphology is on my side and it wouldn't have lasted for 3000 years without maintaining some meaningful distinction. I'd say that by choosing to argue there is do semantic difference between imperfective and perfective imperatives, you have a virtually impossible task before you.

@Scott Lawson: I would be interested in what you think of what I've said.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Scott Lawson
Posts: 450
Joined: June 9th, 2011, 6:36 pm

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by Scott Lawson »

MAubrey wrote:@Scott Lawson: I would be interested in what you think of what I've said.
Boy! I'm not as able or as quick as David is in forming conclusions. My thoughts come in dribs and drabs unlike the torrents that David is able to produce. It does occur to me, however, that if one can distinguish the outstanding characteristics of the imperative over its alternatives then one might come to some conclusions about its nature and use. I'm still trying to understand the elemental facts about the imperative. Here's what's going on in my head:




Facts:

Past time is not present in the imperative so the augment is omitted in the imperfect and aorist tense-forms.

The imperative always implies future time.

The imperative is a late development in Greek. It is the last of the moods to appear.

Prohibitions in the 2nd and 3rd person aorist subjunctive held their place and were not supplanted by the imperative.

The imperative and the future between them carried off the old jussive use of the subjunctive in positive commands of 2nd and 3rd person.

The imperative receives most of its forms from the old injunctive.

The subjunctive, optative, future indicative, infinitive and participle are all used imperativally.

The imperative lacks a regular set of its own suffixes.

The imperative appears in a present form sometimes indistinguishable from the 2nd person plural present indicative active and middle.

Questions that arise and some possible answers:

Q. What is it that the imperative does/has that the alternatives for the imperative has/lack?

A. The alternatives to the imperative lack immediacy/urgency. They lack a sense of a superior addressing an inferior or a peer speaking with urgency.

Q. Is aspect more prominent in the imperative than in the alternatives?

Q. Since prohibitions in the 2nd and 3rd person aorist subjunctive held their place and were not supplanted by the imperative is there a clear sense of urgency in the subjunctive or not? Is it Stop or Do not…?

Q. Do prohibitions in the imperative show a clear sense of urgency?

Q. Is there special significance in the imperatival suffixes?

Q. What might the present form of the imperative add that the alternatives lacked?

A. Continuous action…
Scott Lawson
Eeli Kaikkonen
Posts: 611
Joined: June 2nd, 2011, 7:49 am
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:The quotations from the LXX are all parallel pairs which clearly refer to the same thing. To make ready the way of the lord is just really the same as to make his paths straight. Likewise for all the nations (not Gentiles alone) to praise the lord is just the same as for all the peoples to praise him. So I am not really convinced by the suggestion that of the two imperatives one is inchoative but the other is not.
You're confusing the choice of a speaker with external reality here. Virtually any event or situation can be referred to by imperfective or perfective aspect. The speaker/author makes a choice to present a given event as either perfective or imperfective. In this case, the event referred to by aorist is unmarked may very well be inchoative as well. The write simply chose to not to conceive of it as such.
In the case of poetic parallelism we have to remember also that it's easy to fall into a linguistic fallacy. If two words are used in parallel in clauses which together poetically point to one idea, it doesn't mean that the words mean the same thing. The same goes of course with grammar. Even if there is one great idea behind two morphological forms, they don't need to have the same semantics.
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by David Lim »

MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:Since you say that the frequency distribution of each individual verb affects its usage, I probably cannot disagree. But may I suggest that the existence of morphological structure is not always reflective of a current distinction in meaning? There may indeed have been some kind of distinction before but which has been lost, though the forms have remained. So I would not assume a necessary distinction as a starting point.
That is indeed possible, but I view it as unlikely. The contrast between perfective and imperfective has existed in the imperative for 1000 years before the New Testament and 2000 years after the New Testament up to this very day in Modern Greek. I find it highly improbable that it would not have been dropped out at any point during that time.
Indeed the fact that modern Greek distinguishes between the present and aorist imperative does support your assumption. But why then does the actual usage in Koine Greek seem to vary according to each individual word, as though the frequency was a more important factor than distinction in meaning?
MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:The quotations from the LXX are all parallel pairs which clearly refer to the same thing. To make ready the way of the lord is just really the same as to make his paths straight. Likewise for all the nations (not Gentiles alone) to praise the lord is just the same as for all the peoples to praise him. So I am not really convinced by the suggestion that of the two imperatives one is inchoative but the other is not.
You're confusing the choice of a speaker with external reality here. Virtually any event or situation can be referred to by imperfective or perfective aspect. The speaker/author makes a choice to present a given event as either perfective or imperfective. In this case, the event referred to by aorist is unmarked may very well be inchoative as well. The write simply chose to not to conceive of it as such.
Yes I understand that the LXX translator may choose two different forms to refer to the same thing, but it may not be to mark one as inchoative and not the other intentionally, just as the author of the Hebrew text did not intend different meanings by using the different words "nations" and "peoples". That is why I say that the present and aorist imperatives were not chosen with different semantics intended. I consider the quotation in John 1:23, "ευθυνατε την οδον κυριου", as evidence somewhat of equivalence between the two, because even if the authors of the two texts were conscious of a clear distinction between the present and aorist, they did not even agree on whether it should be present ("ευθειας ποιειτε") or aorist ("ευθυνατε"), thus it demonstrates at least a large overlap between the two, hence their readers would also not attribute any much significance to the disparity.
MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:As for Rom 6:13, the supposed "rule" for the negated imperative implying a command of cessation does not hold. See Matt 23:3 where the present "μη ποιειτε" clearly does not mean "stop doing". I would also say that the example of Matt 6:19 in Funk's Grammar does not mean "stop storing up treasures upon the earth" but simply "do not store up treasures upon the earth", because the parallel imperative is "store up treasures in the heaven", and there is clearly no difference between them except that one is negative.
I never said there was a rule. There is a popular idea that negated commands involve a cessation of activity, but don't be so quick to assume that I adhere to it. I regularly separate myself from traditional views. What is relevant for Romans 6:13 is not necessary for Matthew 23:3. The only "rule" that I put forward is that imperfective imperatives have internal temporal structure. Matthew 23:3 is iterative and Matt 6:19 is constative. That's clearly visible if you look at the clauses independently of the negation. In both cases, I would paraphrase the commands as "do not do this thing that you would otherwise do whether occasionally (Matt 23:3) or regularly (Matt 6:19)."
Okay sorry it seemed as if you were implicitly referring to the rule to justify your reading. I would simply paraphrase both Matt 3:23 and Matt 6:19 with "do not ... at all." I do not think Matt 6:19 implies that the audience might regularly store up treasures upon the earth. Rather Jesus is just saying that you can choose one of two places to store up treasures, either upon the earth or in the heaven, and you should choose the latter and not the former. I would say that the negative present imperative in Rom 6:13 is likewise the exact opposite of the aorist imperative; you can choose either to present the members of your bodies as instruments of unrighteousness for sin or to present yourselves to God as living ones out of the dead and the members of your bodies as instruments of righteousness to God; do not do the first but the second.
MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:And for 1 Pet 2:17, I do not see why any of the present imperatives involves situations.

I don't know what this means. All of the clauses in 1 Peter 2:17 involve situations--clauses in general refer to situatoins: things happen.
David Lim wrote:All of them are just as generic as the first, "honour all [men]", and, if you count it, the second, "love the brotherhood". To honour the king is a part of honouring all men, albeit an important part. And I think "τον θεον φοβεισθε" is as generic as one can get for the exhortation "fear God".
So you say and you're not particularly convincing. I'd say you're grasping at straws to avoid finding semantic difference. It's perfectly reasonable that the following three clauses involve constative or habitual action. Or do you think that Paul didn't want Timothy to honor the king and fear God on a regular/constant basis? The fact that "honor all" does not involve internal temporal structure, by definition, makes it more generic than the other commands that follow.
If "τον θεον φοβεισθε" and "τον βασιλεα τιματε" (and what if the original text says "την αδελφοτητα αγαπησατε" and not "την αδελφοτητα αγαπατε"?) both involve habitual action, why is "honour all [men]" not also in the present? Are you saying that Peter (not Paul) does not quite consider "honouring all men" as regular or on a constant basis, so he chose not to mark it, resulting in an aorist imperative?
MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:Is there any way I can access those works? The link you provided leads to a "page not found".
Sorry, I can't help you there. That citation was from a paper that I wrote on Russian syntax back in 2008. The other books, would be accessible through interlibrary loan, though.

Speaking of papers, I have to go write one now, so I can't reply again any time soon. I don't expect to convince you. I know this is a debated area and I may very well be wrong about the details, but on the question of whether there is a distinction, the morphology is on my side and it wouldn't have lasted for 3000 years without maintaining some meaningful distinction. I'd say that by choosing to argue there is do semantic difference between imperfective and perfective imperatives, you have a virtually impossible task before you.
Sure, and thanks a lot for your detailed replies! I appreciate them and I am sure Scott also does.
Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:In the case of poetic parallelism we have to remember also that it's easy to fall into a linguistic fallacy. If two words are used in parallel in clauses which together poetically point to one idea, it doesn't mean that the words mean the same thing. The same goes of course with grammar. Even if there is one great idea behind two morphological forms, they don't need to have the same semantics.
I know, but neither do they need to have different semantics, just as words like "ειπον" / "ειπαν" and the three declensions of "σκοτος" (masc./neut.) / "σκοτια" (fem.) have different forms but identical meaning. But of course you may then say that my examples are not good because they are poetic... Alright, what about the others I mentioned earlier, like "λεγετε" in Luke 10:5 with "ειπατε" in Luke 10:10, and "γινωσκετε" in Luke 10:11 with "γνωτε" in Luke 21:20? Are they all instances of the author's conscious choice to mark one as imperfective and not the other? But it is untenable to say that "πρωτον λεγετε ειρηνη τω οικω τουτω" in Luke 10:5 is imperfective!
δαυιδ λιμ
John Kendall
Posts: 25
Joined: May 31st, 2011, 5:41 pm

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by John Kendall »

Scott and David,

Mike's made some useful points and I'm afraid that I don't have time to engage with this conversation, but you might find it useful to read the relevant section of Steve Baugh's Introduction to Greek Tense Form Choice in Non-Indicative Verbs. It's freely available at: http://baugh.wscal.edu/PDF/ALL/GreekTen ... _Baugh.pdf

I have some quibbles here and there, but I think it's a pretty good place to start.

John
--
John Kendall
Cardiff
Wales
MAubrey
Posts: 1091
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Verbs of saying in the Imperative

Post by MAubrey »

David Lim wrote:Indeed the fact that modern Greek distinguishes between the present and aorist imperative does support your assumption. But why then does the actual usage in Koine Greek seem to vary according to each individual word, as though the frequency was a more important factor than distinction in meaning?
This is simply the reality of complex systems. Frequency effects on individual lexemes are generally a result of a close semantic relationship between that lexeme and the semantics on the morphological exponent.
David Lim wrote:Yes I understand that the LXX translator may choose two different forms to refer to the same thing, but it may not be to mark one as inchoative and not the other intentionally, just as the author of the Hebrew text did not intend different meanings by using the different words "nations" and "peoples".
You're still confusing separate concepts here. The words "nations" and "peoples" have the same referent, but they do not have the same meanings. Meaning and reference cannot be conflated. The author of the Hebrew text, by choosing one term or another creates a distinct mental representation of the reference in question in the mind of his audience.
David Lim wrote:That is why I say that the present and aorist imperatives were not chosen with different semantics intended. I consider the quotation in John 1:23, "ευθυνατε την οδον κυριου", as evidence somewhat of equivalence between the two, because even if the authors of the two texts were conscious of a clear distinction between the present and aorist, they did not even agree on whether it should be present ("ευθειας ποιειτε") or aorist ("ευθυνατε"), thus it demonstrates at least a large overlap between the two, hence their readers would also not attribute any much significance to the disparity.
This is still a confusion of meaning and reference. John and Mark don't need to agree. The event itself is neither imperfective or perfective. It's an external reality. John and Mark simply need to decide how they're going to conceptualize it. Grammarians have been saying this for at least 100 years:
A. T. Robertson's Big Grammar, 1380 wrote:Perhaps a word more should be said as to the point of view of the speaker or writer. The same action can be viewed as punctiliar or linear. The same writer may look at it now one way, now the other. Different writers often vary in the presentation of the same action.
The fact that both writers use a different aspectual form says nothing about the overlap between the two forms. Rather, it says something about how each of the writers conceptualizes the predication. Beyond that, such an analysis still doesn't account for the morphological difference of the two forms. That is the biggest problem with your view and I really don't see how you can get around it. And I would say that continues to be the problem with all the other texts we're looking at. What you would need to do is provide an adequate account or explanation of why two distinct morphological forms would coalesce semantically while maintaining their morphological difference through the history of the language.

With that said, I should probably make a couple comments on 1 Peter 2:17...
David Lim wrote:
MAubrey wrote:
David Lim wrote:And for 1 Pet 2:17, I do not see why any of the present imperatives involves situations.

I don't know what this means. All of the clauses in 1 Peter 2:17 involve situations--clauses in general refer to situations: things happen.
David Lim wrote:All of them are just as generic as the first, "honour all [men]", and, if you count it, the second, "love the brotherhood". To honour the king is a part of honouring all men, albeit an important part. And I think "τον θεον φοβεισθε" is as generic as one can get for the exhortation "fear God".
So you say and you're not particularly convincing. I'd say you're grasping at straws to avoid finding semantic difference. It's perfectly reasonable that the following three clauses involve constative or habitual action. Or do you think that Paul didn't want Timothy to honor the king and fear God on a regular/constant basis? The fact that "honor all" does not involve internal temporal structure, by definition, makes it more generic than the other commands that follow.
If "τον θεον φοβεισθε" and "τον βασιλεα τιματε" (and what if the original text says "την αδελφοτητα αγαπησατε" and not "την αδελφοτητα αγαπατε"?) both involve habitual action, why is "honour all [men]" not also in the present? Are you saying that Peter (not Paul) does not quite consider "honouring all men" as regular or on a constant basis, so he chose not to mark it, resulting in an aorist imperative?
The difference between τὴν ἀδελφότητα ἀγαπᾶτε & τὸν θεὸν φοβεῖσθε compared to πάντας τιμήσατε is, as I said before, an instance of general vs. specific. The generalized command "honor everyone" is in the aorist and the more specific commands are imperfective. "Everyone" is more general than "the king" or "the community of believers" or "God." The general nature of πάντας correlates well with the perfective aspect. Since it makes no reference to internal temporal structure, it is more naturally suited to non-specific commands than the imperfective aspect.

As for the variant, the aorist variant αγαπησατε is too easily explained as an instance of dittography to be worth considering, not to mention its late appearance in the manuscript tradition.
David Lim wrote:But it is untenable to say that "πρωτον λεγετε ειρηνη τω οικω τουτω" in Luke 10:5 is imperfective!
But it is imperfective.

David, what's your first language?
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Post Reply

Return to “Syntax and Grammar”