FW: Ef hWi and Indicative Tenses in Greek and English

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jan 7 10:13:02 EST 2000


Note: Bill has very wisely snipped items from a 17K off-list reply that I
sent to his last on-list series of questions about our ongoing dispute over
EF' hWi as an adverbial conjunction introducing subordinate explanatory
clauses.

At 8:55 PM -0600 1/6/00, Bill Ross wrote:
><Bill>
>Carl, I've had a lot of trouble with my email. I hope this finally gets
>through. It keeps saying your email server doesn't exist??
>
>Anyway, a simple question on your objection to my reading of EF hWi, that I
>thought might be of interest to the whole list:
>
><Carl>
>>Yes. hWi in Acts 7:53 is masculine dative sg--dative to construe with EPI,
>masculine singular to agree with the antecendent TOPOS. Don't be confused
>by the fact that hWi may be either masculine or neuter. In Acts 7:53 it is
>masculine; in the phrase EF' hWi which I've been saying means "because" or
>"since" the hWi is technically neuter because TOUTWi hOTI which it
>represents and abbreviates is neuter.
>...
>Again, you're insisting upon "which" as a relative pronoun but aren't
>pointing to any noun, masculine or neuter, in what precedes that hWi could
>refer as to an antecedent.
>
><Bill>
>...Isn't it common for a neuter relative pronoun to refer back to a
>clause, paragraph, section... with no regard to gender? For example, DIA
>TOUTO need not refer
>to any particular gender, correct? The reason I ask is that this is how I am
>seeing hWi being used - pointing to a clause such as:
>
>EIS PANTAS ANQROWPOUS hO QANATOS DIHLQEN

It is indeed common to refer back to a preceding clause, paragraph, section
by using a neuter relative pronoun, particularly hO/ (the accented n.sg.
rel. pron. as distinguished from the unaccented article, hO) and hA/ (the
accented n.pl. rel. pron. as distinguished from the n. pl. article, TA).

BUT it is more common to refer back to a larger textual unit (clause,
paragraph, section) by using a demonstrative neuter pronoun, e.g. DIA
TOUTO, DIA TAUTA, DI' EKEINO, DI' EKEINA, KATA TOUTO, or the like. Far more
common than those is it to use the conjunction  hO/TI which originated as
an indirect interrogative pronoun, a compound of the relative pronoun n.sg.
hO/ and the indefinite n. sg. pronoun TI. So common is this usage of hO/TI
in fact that a useful convention developed (for which I'm not sure whether
grammarians or editors/printers bear the greater responsibility) to
distinguish the form used as a conjunction, hO/TI by writing/printing it as
a single word from the form used as an indefinite relative/interrogative
pronoun, hO/ TI, which was written/printed as two words. I might add that
this usage of what was originally a relative pronoun as a conjunction
introducing a subordinate clause is a common development in many IE
languages (Latin QUOD, German DASS, French QUE, Italian CHE, English THAT,
etc.).

BUT I do NOT believe that EF' hWi when used to introduce a subordinate
clause is EVER used to refer back to a larger textual unit (clause,
paragraph, section); while you may see an instance where the hWi is
masculine sg. relative pronoun referring back to a masculine antecedent
noun (Acts 7:53 hWi with TOPOS) or where a hHi refers back to a feminine
antecedent noun (Luke 11:22 THN PANOPLIAN AIREI EF' hHI EPEPOIQEI ...), I
do not believe a clear instance will be found wherein the neuter relative
pronoun object of EPI refers back to a textual unit larger than a concrete
noun.

>Also...
>
><Carl>
>I don't understand what you mean by "understand the TRANSLATION of the
>aorist;" are you trying to tell me that the aorist here is not referring to
>past
>time? My own reason for preferring to translate the aorist here as "have
>sinned" is to underscore the totality of the acts of human sinning. I have
>no idea in the world what you mean to imply about the difference from "all
>have sinned" that "all sinned" implies for understanding how the aorist is
>used here.
>
><Bill>
>Though many allow for the addition of the word "have" for the aorist, I
>prefer to reserve that for the perfect. In this situation, where the
>question being answered is whether men sinned "at some point in time"
>(allowing for each
>individually) or "upon Adam's sinning" (in the past and impacting the
>present) it seems unreasonable to relax the distinction between aorist and
>perfect.

I still don't understand the distinction you mean to draw here between
"they all sinned" and "they have all sinned" for PANTES hHMARTON in  Rom
5:12 DIA TOUTO hWSPER DI' hENOS ANQRWPOU hH hAMARTIA EIS TON KOSMON
EISHLQEN KAI DIA THS hAMAARTIAS hO QANATOS, KAI hOUTWS EIS PANTAS ANQRWPOUS
hO QANATOS DIHLQEN, EF' hWi PANTES hHMARTON. But so long as you grant that
hHMARTON does refer to the sinning of all humanity in time past, I am
content.

But this does raise another matter of the difference between English and
Greek tense usage that I think is worth clarifying, although it doesn't
bear that directly on the question originally in dispute in the present
exchange (and that's why I've added to the subject-header). I would contend
that the Greek aorist form hHMARTON may legitimately be translated either
as "they sinned" or "they have sinned." If so, does that mean there's no
real distinction between hHMARTON and hHMARTHKASI? My own view (and I've
expressed it previously in this forum) is that in actual practice this
distinction between aorist and perfect to express perfective past action
has largely disappeared--and that is one reason why the perfect tense is
relatively rare, namely: the aorist has usurped one of the chief functions
of the perfect tense. On the other hand, I think the perfect tense
hHMARTHKASI retains a distinct function when it underscores the present
ongoing consequence of the action referred to; thus hHMARTHKASI may be
translated into English as "they have sinned" (as could also, I think
hHMARTON) but hHMARTHKASI bears the additional implication: their sin--and
their consequent guilt--remains in effect even now. My point, to reiterate
it by stating it differently, is that there is an ambiguity in the English
perfect tense form "they have sinned" just as there is in the Latin perfect
PECCAVERUNT and in the Greek aorist hHMARTON in that each of these forms
may represent the simple fact of past action and also the completeness of
the past action. But there's a distinct sense in which these perfect tenses
express resultant present state--and this sense is not so often uppermost
in view as it is in Latin VIXERUNT = "Their life is over with--they're
dead" or Vergil's FUIT ILIUM = "Troy has had its existence and is no more."
I think that this distinct stative sense tends to be preserved in the Koine
Greek perfect tense when it is actually used, but that (apart from forms
like hESTHKA and OIDA which are understood and used as present tense even
though their morphology is perfect-tense) the perfect tense survives the
other common sense of the perfect tense--completion of action in the
past--is regularly expressed in the aorist indicative. I don't really think
I'm saying anything new here but that I'm simply calling attention to a
fact about Koine usage of the perfect and aorist tenses that is already
pretty well attested in the grammars. Wallace, for instance seems to me to
be right on target regarding this function of the aorist (I don't have the
page ## as I'm drawing on the AcCordance software version):
--------------------
"III.  Consummative (Culminative, Ecbatic, Effective) Aorist
	"A.  Definition
	"The aorist is often used to stress the cessation of an act or
state. Certain verbs, by their lexical nature, virtually require this
usage.11 For example, "he died" is usually not going to be an ingressive
idea. The context also assists in this usage at times; it may imply that an
act was already in progress and the aorist then brings the action to a
conclusion. This is different from a consummative perfect, for the latter
places the stress on (a) completion of the action, not merely cessation;12
and especially (b) continuing results after the completion of the action."







Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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