Are Participles Marked Temporally?

Carl Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Mar 3 10:49:24 EST 1999


On 03/03/99, "Christopher Hutson <crhutson at salisbury.net>" wrote:
> Carl wrote:
> >
> >Let me just state what I think is a "more-or-less" agreed and
> traditional 
> >view: the "tense" stems really do express only aspect, but when the
> AUGMENT 
> >(whether temporal or syllabic) is added in an Imperfect, an Aorist,
> or a 
> >Pluperfect form, then temporal indication of past time is also
> clearly 
> >there. But to this must be added that even that statement will be
> disputed 
> >by some who will claim that an Aorist indicative may point to present
> time 
> >or even to future time, and that other factors in the sentence,
> including 
> >the nature of the verb being used as well as adverbs, etc., etc.,
> enter 
> >into play in indicating the time frame.
> 
> 
> I have found this list most helpful as I have tried to sort out aspect
> in my own mind.  I am no aspect geek, so this is not a dispute but a
> query for all the big aspect greeks out there:
> 
> The idea that the augment marks an indicative verb for past time
> makes sense to me and seems to account for most
> texts.  In moods other than the indicative, I can understand the
> argument that Greek "tenses" are marked for aspect but not for time.  
> 
> My question has to do with participles.  Participles have no augment,
> so according to the general consensus given above they should have
> aspectual but not temporal significance.  And yet, it nearly always
> "works" in my mind to read an aorist participle as describing action
> that takes place prior to the action of the verb in the main clause,
> while a present participle describes action that takes place
> simultaneously with the action of the main verb.  Can you listers help
> me make sense of how you fit participles into your time/aspect
> theories?  Why is it that participles seem to have temporal
> significance even though they have no augments?  What am I missing?

This could probably be explained in better terms than I shall use, but I 
would affirm that aorist participles, more often than not, DO indicate 
action prior to that of the main verb; NEVETHELESS, it is dangerous to 
assert as a rule that they always do so because there are instances where 
the aorist participle indicates simple simultaneous action, e.g.: GELASAS 
EIPEN, "he said with a snicker ..."  I rather think that the standard 
narrative usage of an aorist participle with a narrative tense to refer to 
prior action is idiomatic and common (I think also that it really 
corresponds precisely to the Latin construction of a perfect passive 
participle in agreement with the object of a verb) to indicate prior action 
in a sequence, e.g.

Gk: TAUTA EIPWN KAI PANTAS CAIREIN KELEUSAS APHLQEN.
Eng: "When he had said this and bidden all farewell, he left" or "He said 
that and bade everyone farewell, and then he left."

Gk: TOUTON OUN IDWN HRETO ...
Eng: "When he saw this man, he asked him ..."
Lat: HUNC AUTEM VISUM INTERROGAVIT ..."

I may be wrong about this, but I suspect that it is a matter of 
conventional idiom rather than anything about the constitution of the 
aorist participle that links it to prior action in narrative 
constructions.




More information about the B-Greek mailing list