John 6:35

Mark Wilson emory2oo2 at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 23 23:29:17 EDT 2002


Wallace says:

------
>To sum up: In general, time is absolute in the indicative, relative in the 
>participle, and nonexistent in the other moods.
-------

Seems odd to use "general...absolute" in the same context, but
from the standpoint of the Future, I know that Wallace states
that "it is the only tense that is always related to time,
regardless of mood." (pg. 566, GGBB).

What caught me attention was Carlton's statement:

-----
Even in the future
>there are the gnomic futures that do not indicate any time,
-----

Do not indicate any time?

"Gnomic" means that a temporal proposition is not
being asserted. Tenses act quite differently when used
in non-temporal proposition/assertions.

I would note also that the three Gnomic Futures Wallace
lists do indeed seem to be simple future tense assertions,
even if they are true "any time." I do not know how one
might conceive of them as not indicating any time!

Finally, I know of no Aorist Indicative that is not Past Tense when
a temporal proposition is being asserted, even if you include
Gnomic (non-temporal) Aorists...that is, they are true at any time,
which would include the past. So, yes, I guess I would say that
generally speaking, Indicatives are absolute when making
temporal assertions.

My thoughts

Mark Wilson


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