[B-Greek] Pluperfect tense
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Feb 17 20:29:23 EST 2003
At 5:20 PM -0800 2/17/03, Mitch Larramore wrote:
>Dr. Conrad
>
>> As the verb hISTAMAI indicates the process of coming
>> to a standing position
>> (from a seated or reclining position) or coming to a
>> halt (from a moving
>> status), the only way to indicate the standing state
>> is with the perfect
>> tense form;
>
>What would an aorist tense indicate with this same
>verb hISTAMAI? I apologize for asking but I thought
>that the aorist was used to present the action of a
>finite verb in a complete way. When you said hISTAMAI
>is a "process of coming to a standing position", I was
>wondering then what this process would be like if it
>were presented in a complete way.
The aorist of hISTAMAI is ESTHN, as I indicated in my follow-up message to
Bert a moment ago. There is no form ESTHSAMHN (at least not in the GNT
corpus).
hISTAMAI = "I am rising/halting/coming to a stand" (imperfective)
ESTHN = "I rose/halted/came to a stand" (perfective)
hESTHKA = "I am standing/am at a standstill" (stative)
I really hesitate to use those "aspect" words, but that's how I think they
best apply.
--
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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