perfect tense

Clwinbery at aol.com Clwinbery at aol.com
Mon Aug 19 00:13:40 EDT 2002


One of the best post on the perfect tense is printed below from Carl Conrad. 
It is important to see the aspect of the perfect as completed with an 
existing result. Some talk as though the action continues but that would be 
incomplete action.

Carl Conrad wrote in March, 1996.

>>>I'm not sure whether this was meant for the list or not, but it raises a
question that I think is of general concern, and I'll respond briefly right
here at the top and let others express opinions on the matter also.

I will agree that the perfect tense is one of the peskier Greek forms to
get across into English; one of the reasons is that it is relatively rare
in Greek narrative; another is that it corresponds only in part to the
English present tense. Properly speaking, of course, the Perfect is an
Aspect rather than a Tense: it indicates COMPLETION of the verbal action;
it has two tenses, Present and Past (as I would--if I ever wrote a
grammar--like to say that the "Imperfect" Aspect indicating acting that is
in progress or beginning or uncompleted, which we normally call "Present,"
also has two tenses Present and Past--what we conventionally call Present
and Imperfect). The Present Perfect expresses the present CONDITION of
COMPLETION of the action, while the Past Perfect (= Pluperfect) expresses a
past CONDITION OF COMPLETION, e.g.:

Present: APOQNHiSKEI " ... is dying"
Imperfect: APEQNHiSKE(N) " ... was dying"
Aorist: APEQANE(N) " ... died"
Present Perfect: APOTEQNHKE(N) "is dead" = "has died"
Past Perfect: APETEQNHKEI "was dead" = "had died"

There are verbs such as OIDA which are, properly (morphologically)
speaking, in the perfect tense but which can only be properly translated in
English in the present tense. Thus OIDA means "I know"--it certainly DOES
NOT mean "I have known"--although one might like to conjecture that it
originally meant something like "I have a full-formed vision," inasmuch as
this is historically and morphologically the perfect-tense form of the verb
which we know in the Aorist as EIDON (from the root wEID/wOID/wID).

Aristotle somewhere--I don't recall offhand whether it's in the Metaphysics
or in the De Anima, probably the former--notes that his idea of ENTELEXEIA,
which is usually translated as either "actuality" or "realization," but
could just as well be translated "fulfillment," often finds expression in
verbs in the perfect tense. I would say that this is true of hESTHKA, which
is the ONLY way that Greek can express the sense, "I am standing." A
similar verb is GI(G)NOMAI, where GI(G)NOMAI means " ... come into
existence," EGENOMHN means "came into existence," but GEGONA means " ...
exist full-formed." Worth looking at are the Greek verbs in John's
prologue, 1:3-4: "all things came into existence (EGENETO) through his
agency, nor did a single thing come into existence (EGENETO). What has
existence (GEGONEN) was, in fact (HN, "philosophic" or "explanatory"
imperfect) Life in Him."


Thanks Carl,

Carlton Winbery
Louisiana College



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