[B-Greek] "I live" and "I lived"

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Sep 15 14:25:37 EDT 2003


At 10:44 AM -0700 9/15/03, J. Kingston Cowart wrote:
>----------------------
>
>Dear List Members,
>
>I have returned to the list after a two-year absence.
>
>Can anyone let me know if the following statement is true or false?
>
>In Greek (ancient or Biblical) the statements "I live in Athens" and "I
>lived in Athens" are morphologically identical, the difference in meaning
>being a matter of context.

It is false. While the present-tense form ZW may bear the sense, "I have
been living (continuously from past into the present)" it canNOT bear the
sense "I lived" (at some point in the past): for that one would have to use
EZHSA ("I lived" or "I came to life" (in the sense that at some point in
the past I was alive without any indication whatsoever that I am now alive)
or EZWN ("I was living at some point in the past and may still now be
living"--the point being that the "living" in the past is indicated as not
having necessarily come to any end).

Perhaps a good example to illustrate this is Rom 7:9-10: EGW DE EZWN CWRIS
NOMOU POTE, ELQOUSHS DE THS ENTOLHS hH hAMARTIA ANEZHSEN, 10 EGW DE
APEQANON. Freely Englished: "Time was that I was-alive/lived apart from
Torah, but as soon as the commandment arrived sin sprang to life, and I
died."

>Online translation sites have not been useful for this question, nor are
>the dictionaries to which I have access - and the folks at "Ask a Linguist"
>did not reply.  So I hope someone at b-greek has time for a quick answer.

I would not expect to find an answer to that question at online translation
sites or in dictionaries; this is a matter of understanding both morphology
and syntax of the tenses, and even primers that teach the Koine Greek
tenses are hardly likely to clarify an issue like this. It's not that the
question is particularly difficult so much as that you are asking for the
sort of information that depends more upon experience of use of the
language, and that's something that requires acquired familiarity with a
range of usage.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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