Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Forum rules
Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Mark House
Posts: 19
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 3:14 pm

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Mark House »

The κραζω confusion isn't limited to future/future perfect. Bernard Taylor's database, which parses all the reduplicated future forms as future perfects, parses several other reduplicated forms as aorists:

κεκράξαι vb 1aor act inf ....κράζω
κεκράξαντες vb 1aor act part masc nom pl ...id.
κεκράξατε vb 1aor act impv 2nd pers pl ....id.
κεκράξεσθε vb fut perf m/p ind 2nd pers pl ...id.
κεκράξεται vb fut perf m/p ind 3rd pers sg ...id.
κεκράξῃ vb fut perf m/p ind 2nd pers sg....id.
κεκράξομαι vb fut perf m/p ind 1st pers sg ....id.
κέκραξον vb 1aor act impv 2nd pers sg....id.
κεκράξονται vb fut perf m/p ind 3rd pers pl....id.

The whole discussion raises a larger question for lexicographers. Do we parse words according to their form or according to their presumed meaning. Should the 2perfect forms of οιδα be parsed as presents and pluperfects as aorists? It makes more sense to me from a pedagogical standpoint to parse according to form and then go on to explain that in the case of certain verbs the tense meanings have (presumably) shifted over time.
Ken M. Penner
Posts: 881
Joined: May 12th, 2011, 7:50 am
Location: Antigonish, NS, Canada
Contact:

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Mark House wrote:The κραζω confusion isn't limited to future/future perfect. Bernard Taylor's database, which parses all the reduplicated future forms as future perfects, parses several other reduplicated forms as aorists:
...
The whole discussion raises a larger question for lexicographers. Do we parse words according to their form or according to their presumed meaning. Should the 2perfect forms of οιδα be parsed as presents and pluperfects as aorists? It makes more sense to me from a pedagogical standpoint to parse according to form and then go on to explain that in the case of certain verbs the tense meanings have (presumably) shifted over time.
I raised a similar question in my notes on Isaiah 14:31 at viewtopic.php?f=51&t=692&p=2767
I'm sympathetic to your point, Mark. But even if we parse according to form, the question remains whether the reduplication is morphological or part of the stem. It appears to be part of the stem in ἐκέκραγον in Isaiah 6:3 (it's not pluperfect), as also in the aorist forms in your list from Taylor.
Which is the simpler explanation: that κε is part of the stem in the future, or that we have here one of a very few verbs that appear in the future perfect?
I am currently leaning toward κε being part of the stem, but I have not always thought so.
Ken M. Penner
Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, St. Francis Xavier University
Co-Editor, Digital Biblical Studies
General Editor, Lexham English Septuagint
Co-Editor, Online Critical Pseudepigrapha pseudepigrapha.org
RDecker
Posts: 46
Joined: May 31st, 2011, 7:10 pm
Location: Clarks Summit, PA
Contact:

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by RDecker »

But then look at Smyth, §1955, who lists 10 future-perfect monolectic forms, including 3 κεκ- forms: ἀναγεγράψομαι, δεδήσεται, κεκλῄσεται, πεπράξεται, εἰρήσεται, κεκλήσομαι, μεμνήσομαι, κεκτήσομαι, τεθνήξω, and ἑστήξω. He does refer to some of these (κεκλήσομαι, μεμνήσομαι, κεκτήσομαι in particular) as being "used like a simple future," but that is a statement of pragmatic function, not morphological formation. I'll have to spend more time on this, but it appears not to be a cut-and-dried issue.
Rodney J. Decker
Prof/NT
Baptist Bible Seminary
Clarks Summit, PA
(See profile for my NTResources blog address.)
RDecker
Posts: 46
Joined: May 31st, 2011, 7:10 pm
Location: Clarks Summit, PA
Contact:

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by RDecker »

Mark House wrote:Here are the search results from Logos. It doesn't have forms of οιδα, which it parses as futures:
BTW, *which* database are you citing from Logos? I know in the NT there are multiple morph databases that have very different tagging philosophies (the Friberg one, e.g., tags functionally, not morphologically); I don't know what they do in LXX.
Rodney J. Decker
Prof/NT
Baptist Bible Seminary
Clarks Summit, PA
(See profile for my NTResources blog address.)
Mark House
Posts: 19
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 3:14 pm

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Mark House »

I was citing the Logos morphology. Using Logos, the Gramcord morphology shows no future perfects in the LXX.
Mark House
Posts: 19
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 3:14 pm

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Mark House »

Ken Penner wrote:

...the question remains whether the reduplication is morphological or part of the stem. It appears to be part of the stem in ἐκέκραγον in Isaiah 6:3 (it's not pluperfect), as also in the aorist forms in your list from Taylor.

Good point. I think it's arguable that there were two functional stems--κραζω and κεκραζω.
Ken M. Penner
Posts: 881
Joined: May 12th, 2011, 7:50 am
Location: Antigonish, NS, Canada
Contact:

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Ken M. Penner »

I did a TLG search on the forms of κράζω with a sigma tense formative (κραξ) and found that κράζω appears in the first aorist as ἔκραξεν and in the future as κεκράξεσθε from the time of Aesop (6th BCE). The reduplicated 1 aorist appears first in the Septuaginta, in the very frequent form ἐκέκραξα. The first non-reduplicated future κράξω appears in 1BCE (Philoxenus).
The impression I get is that the usual future of κράζω was reduplicated (and middle), and the first aorist was not.
Next: what about second aorists and imperfects?
Ken M. Penner
Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, St. Francis Xavier University
Co-Editor, Digital Biblical Studies
General Editor, Lexham English Septuagint
Co-Editor, Online Critical Pseudepigrapha pseudepigrapha.org
Ken M. Penner
Posts: 881
Joined: May 12th, 2011, 7:50 am
Location: Antigonish, NS, Canada
Contact:

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Ken M. Penner wrote:Next: what about second aorists and imperfects?
Second aorists of κράζω seem to appear first in Aesop, but unlike the first aorists, these are reduplicated. The form ἐκεκραγον first appears in Isaiah.
The imperfect ἔκραζον first appears in Judges.
So the principal parts would be:
κράζω κεκράξομαι ἐκέκραγον κέκραγα κέκραγμαι ἐκέκραγην
You could almost say the root was *κεκραγ.
By the time of the LXX, the two aorists were getting mixed up: some first aorists had the κε, and some second aorists didn't. The inconsistency carried over to the future.
Ken M. Penner
Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, St. Francis Xavier University
Co-Editor, Digital Biblical Studies
General Editor, Lexham English Septuagint
Co-Editor, Online Critical Pseudepigrapha pseudepigrapha.org
Alan Patterson
Posts: 158
Joined: September 3rd, 2011, 7:21 pm
Location: Emory University

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by Alan Patterson »

May I ask a rather naive question or two about this two-tense designation?

How should I understand a Future Perfect? (what is the difference in translating a Future Passive from a Future Perfect)

How hypothetically would I understand a Future Present (which to me seems equivalent to Future Perfect in its translation)?
χαρις υμιν και ειρηνη,
Alan Patterson
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: Future Perfect forms in LXX?

Post by cwconrad »

Alan Patterson wrote:May I ask a rather naive question or two about this two-tense designation?

How should I understand a Future Perfect? (what is the difference in translating a Future Passive from a Future Perfect)

How hypothetically would I understand a Future Present (which to me seems equivalent to Future Perfect in its translation)?
First of all, it's not properly speaking a "two-tense" designation, but three distinct temporal forms of the perfect: present perfect (Eng. "I have won", Gk. νενίκηκα), past-perfect/pluperfect (Eng. "I had won", Gk. ἐνενικήκειν), and future-perfect (Eng. "I shall/will have won", Gk. νενικήσω).

A future passive: Greek νικηθήσομαι (= Eng. "I shall be vanquished"), but future perfect: Greek νενικήσω (=Eng. "I shall have vanquished"). But the future perfect is only going to be used in relationship to some future time point indicated in a related clause, e.g. ὁτὰν ἔλθητε, νενικήσει (ἤδη) τοὺς πολεμίους, "Whenever you come/arrive, he will (already) have defeated the enemy."

There is no such thing as a "future present."

It might be simpler to say that these tenses, insofar as they represent reference to an immediate point in time, indicate priority (past tense), simultaneity (present tense), or posteriority (future tense). The three perfect tenses indicate completion of an act with reference to (a) the immediate present time, (present perfect), (b) some point in the past (past perfect/pluperfect), (c) some point in the future (future perfect).
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Post Reply

Return to “Septuagint and Pseudepigrapha”