Discourse function of Imperfective Tense (Mark: 1:4-8)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Dec 28 11:55:59 EST 2002
At 9:07 AM -0500 12/28/02, Moon-Ryul Jung wrote:
>When I read Mark chapter 1, I have noticed that after
>a sentence with aorist tense EGENETO in verse 4,
>a sequence of 6 sentences with imperfective tense follows.
>It seems that these sentences with imperfect tense describe
>situations that are customary or repeated.
>But does the verb form itself imply it?
>
>For example we have in verse 7:
>
>EKHRUSSEN LEGWN: ERCETAI .....
>
>John's preaching would have been repreated day after day.
>So, he would have said "ERCETAI.... " several times in
>different occasions. Does the imperfect verb form EKHRUSSEN
>imply this repetition?
Of course the ERCETAI KTL element is all a statement of the CONTENT of the
KHRUGMA. If in fact he never varied the wording of his sermons, he would
certainly have repeated that wording day after day. But I don't think that
the tense/aspect of ERCETAI bears any relationship at all to that of
EKHRUSSEN here.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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