[B-Greek] aorist subjunctive

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Apr 1 05:50:26 EST 2004


At 8:53 AM +0100 4/1/04, phil-eng wrote:
>Thanks Carl.
>
>I have looked up Wallace and also re-read the archives on OU MH
>TELESHTE, and noted the fact of it being "a strongly emphatic negative
>stating that a possible future state in the subjunctive will certainly
>not arrive".
>
>I am trying to explain to myself what the third person aorist
>subjunctive means. (2nd person aorist subjunctive is used in
>prohibitions)
>
>Correy Keating (www.ntgreek.org), says that, "the time implied by the
>subjunctive is usually future since it is a mood of contingency.Thus the
>future indicative and the aorist subjunctive are closely related and
>sometimes substituted for each other". Wenham and others say something
>similar.
>
>How does a subjunctive become future?
>
>The aorist is punctiliar and the subjunctive expresses doubt; but i am
>unclear about the combination, the aorist subjunctive (3rd person) with
>specific reference to CRONISHi in LXX Habakkuk 2:3.

I think that you're perhaps associating the subjunctive too distinctly with
doubt, although it certainly may express contingency. In the earliest Greek
literature--Homer--the subjunctive was quite commonly used to express
simple future intention; linguistic historians once thought (but not any
longer) that, because of the seemingly shared -S- marker, the Greek future
indicative derived from the aorist subjunctive (they now assert that the
-S- marker in the future was a desiderative infix, whereas the -S- of the
aorist is an aorist marker seen in other languages. Normally the first
usage of the subjunctive learned by a beginner in Greek is the hortatory
usage: ERCWMEQA, "let us go." It is WILL or INTENT (as opposed to
declaration of FACT by the indicative) that is involved here, as originally
in the old English auxiliary "shall" and "will" or German 'sollen' and
'wollen.'

You are right to note that the aorist is punctiliar, but that doesn't
inhibit it being future; Modern Greek has two futures, both based upon the
subjunctive, a punctiliar future QA KLEISW (ancient QELW hINA KLEISW) = "I
shall close (get closed)" and a continuous future QA KLEIW (ancient QELW
hINA KLEIW) = "I shall be closing."

>-----Original Message-----
>From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>To: phil-eng at ighmail.com
>Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 10:12:51 -0500
>Subject: Re: [B-Greek] aorist subjunctive l
>
>> At 2:06 PM +0100 3/31/04, Philip Engmann wrote:
>> >The Aorist Subjunctive
>> >
>> >Jose Alvarez defines the aorist subjunctive as "an event that will
>> >punctuate the succession of history if an individual is faithful to
>> >accomplish it as an act of their free will".
>> >(www.thepattern.org/files/OurpositioninChristtwo.htm).
>> >
>> > Albert Rijksbaron says that "the aorist subjunctive indicates the
>> state
>> >of affairs of the protasis is anterior to that of the apodosis".
>> >(http://typhon.perseus.tufts.edu/typhon/aem/Stoa/Synsem/html) .
>> >
>> >Does anyone have any simpler or clearer definitions of the aorist
>> >subjunctive, particularly in relation to the third person active
>> aorist
>> >subjunctive verb, CRONISE in Habakkuk 2:3?
>>
>> I supposse you mean CRONISHi?
>>
>> Text (it's usually helpful to have the text in front of us): DIOTI ETI
>> hORASIS EIS KAIRON KAI ANTATELEI EIS PERAS KAI OUK EIS KENON EAN
>> hUSTERHSHi
>> hUPOMEINON AUTON hOTI ERCOMENOS hHXEI KAI OU MH CRONISHi.
>>
>> It seems to me that your two citations are irrelevant to the aorist
>> subjective in CRONISHi; this is rather an instance of what we were
>> discussing on-list a week or so ago (3/17-24) with regard to OU MH
>> TELESHTE; here we have the common usage of OU MH + aorist subjunctive
>> as
>> emphatic future assertion: "he will certainly not tarry." Cf. Wallace
>> GGBB,
>> p. 468, "Emphatic negation." Certainly the fact that CRONISHi is aorist
>> subjunctive has nothing to do with the conditional construction
>> preceding
>> it ("if he should be late, wait for him"), rather this is in the
>> explanatory clause, "because he WILL COME ..."
>> --
>>
>> 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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-- 

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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