MELLW followed by Present
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Nov 13 06:45:50 EST 2002
At 11:21 AM +0000 11/13/02, Maurice A. O'Sullivan wrote:
>At 06:50 13/11/2002, Dale Noonan wrote:
>
>>What is it about MELLW that seems to call for
>>a present tense verb to complete the action?
>
>Dale:
>You might like to read what Smyth's Greek Grammar has to say on this.
>Go to: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:abo:sec,00001
>and enter 1959 in the search box.
>
>You will notice that Smyth distinguishes between MELLW + present infinitive
>as a verb of _will_ and future inf. as a verb of _thinking_
But what you really need to check is BDAG; the Classical Attic distinction
between usage with present and usage with future infinitive no longer holds
in the Koine. BDAG shows several usages (I'm deleting the lists of exx. in
a long entry):
MELLW (Hom.+)
1. to take place at a future point of time and so to be subsequent
to another event, be about to, used w. an inf. foll.
a. only rarely w. the fut. inf., w. which it is regularly used in
ancient Gk. (Hom. et al.), since in colloquial usage the fut. inf. and ptc.
were gradually disappearing and being replaced by combinations with me÷llw
(B-D-F §338, 3; 350; s. Rob. 882; 889). W. the fut. inf. m. denotes
certainty that an event will occur in the future
b. w. the aor. inf. (rarely in ancient Gk. [but as early as Hom.,
and e.g. X., Cyr. 1, 4, 16]
c. w. the pres. inf. So mostly (ca. 80 times in the NT.; oft. in
lit., ins, pap, LXX
a. be about to, be on the point of
b. in a weakened sense it serves simply as a periphrasis for the fut.
g. denoting an intended action: intend, propose, have in mind
2. to be inevitable, be destined, inevitable
a. w. pres. inf. to denote an action that necessarily follows a
divine decree is destined, must, will certainly
3. The ptc. is used abs. in the mng. (in the) future, to come
4. delay TI MELLEIS? why are you delaying?
--
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.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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