EAN + verb in present or aorist

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu Oct 31 11:36:35 EST 2002


>
> >As a follow-up to some recent questions on EAN and also whether
> Greek verbs
> >show aspect or time or both, I checked to see whether there was
> some system
> >to EAN clauses with either present or aorist verbs following.
>
>
> Your study here can not answer the question of "aspect or time or
> both" since you have excluded "time" with your choice of EAN. There
> is no temporal nature to verbs outside the Indicative, and all the
> verbs in your population will be Subjunctive, right?
>
> Mark Wilson

Almost right. I intended a follow-up and study of a limited area. I could
not give a comprehensive answer to the BIG question about Greek aspect and
time for all verb forms. Books have been written about that, and the experts
still don't agree. Your comment appears to assume that indicative forms
indicate time and non-indicative forms indicate aspect. I don't think the
answer is as simple as that. In my understanding of linguistic categories, I
find it hard to make a correlation between tense-aspect and
subjunctive-indicative. I would expect the realis-irrealis distinction to be
a different parameter than aspect.

Are all verbs subjunctive after EAN? Pretty much. What about

1Th 3:8 EAN hUMEIS STHKETE - indicative present, but maybe this verb does
not have a subjunctive form (derived from the perfect of ISTHMI)? Some mss
have STHKHTE, though.

1Jn 5:15 EAN OIDAMEN - indicative perfect

And a couple of future forms:

Luk 19:40 EAN hOUTOI SIWPHSOUSIN
Act 7:7 hWi EAN DOULEUSOUSIN

BDAG has a few more indicative forms listed under EAN.

The question is complicated by the fact that EAN is often used instead of AN
after a relative.

Iver Larsen




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