Participle/Finite Verb

clayton stirling bartholomew c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net
Fri Jul 21 14:20:57 EDT 2000


Perhaps we should examine a text from Mark which seems to conform to the
pattern considered normal for participles and finite verbs.

Mk 9:20c reads
KAI PESWN EPI THS GHS EKULIETO AFRIZWN.

Here we see PESWN describing an action antecedent to EKULIETO which is
either middle or passive. The agent of PESWN may or may not be the same as
the agent of EKULIETO, but that is a digression. Lets not digress.

What about the present participle AFRIZWN? How does this relate temporally
to the rest of the action? Based on my English speaking habits I would be
tempted to say that AFRIZWN describes an action contemporaneous with
EKULIETO. But that is just my English heritage taking control of my
analysis, is it not?

What is to keep AFRIZWN from being an action that encompasses the entire
event  PESWN . . . ? One thing which I would not attempt to argue concerning
AFRIZWN is that it represents an action prior to and leading up to EKULIETO.
But this judgement is made primarily on semantic grounds and not based on
syntax alone. 

It was also primarily semantic considerations that led me to suggest that in
Homer's Iliad 1.311

> AGWN describes a temporally
> antecedent action leading up to the action encoded in  hEISET'



--  
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062





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