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.
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