Time of Participles
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Aug 15 13:43:41 EDT 2002
At 12:49 PM +0000 8/15/02, Mark Wilson wrote:
>I found this study by Rod Decker very informative, and still it makes
>me wonder why there is such a consistent temporal nature to the verbals
>with Greek. It seems to me that something MORE THAN aspect is involved
>in these findings.
Yes; the usage clearly enough indicates that aorist ptc. & aorist
indicative is the regular Greek way of indicating consecutive actions.
Patterns of usage, I think, rather than some "rule" is what will be found
here.
>Findings like these:
>------
>Of the 55 adverbial aorist participles in the sample sections, 47 (85.5%)
>> >express antecedent time and 8 (14.5%) refer to simultaneous time. No
>> >instances of subsequent reference were observed.
>-------
>
>How do these findings align with your (Decker) and Porter's statements
>concerning the temporal nature of the Greek verbal system? I realize
>that GMark is a HISTORICAL account of the life of Christ, but why
>is there a temporal distinction between the Aorist and Present
>participles? Especially in light of the fact that HOW TO PORTRAY
>the action is the main idea behind ASPECT. Why is there a consistent
>use of the Aorist to portray antecedent events? The author chooses
>Aorist or Present, not based on WHEN the event happens, but HOW he
>wants the reader to view the action, right? Simply because an actual
>event may have come and gone does not seem to me to be a reliable
>factor in determing HOW TO PORTRAY that event.
>
>So why is there not a randon use found in the Aorist and Present
>participles? Or to state it another way: why do writers seem so
>adverse to portraying antecedent actions as in progress?
I'm not sure what you're really looking for here; you certainly can have
the narrative sequence as in English: "I go into this little bar. I ask the
waiter for a beer. He gives me a beer and I tell him ..." It's the regular
pattern in our joke telling. I think that Mark tells a number of his
stories in sequential present tenses too. And I think that if you keep
reading narrative Greek--lots of it--you DON'T really get confused about
what time is being talked about or what event comes first.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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