[B-Greek] On the Perfect Tense
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Feb 25 19:41:50 EST 2004
At 1:45 PM -0800 2/25/04, waldo slusher wrote:
>We were recently provided with a website, Filologia,
>where articles are available to review. The article on
>the Perfect Tense is one I had read a long time ago.
>
>There is in my opinion a noticeable misunderstanding
>of the "stative aspect" of the Perfect Tense form.
>
>The Perfect Tense Form (Indicative) does denote the
>state obtained from an anterior action/event, but what
>it does NOT imply is that the state obtained runs on
>indefinitely... all the way up to the present moment.
>
>If the Deictic Center is in the PAST, then the state
>obtained only holds up to the (PAST) TIME of the
>Deictic Center. If the results continue beyond that,
>say up to the present TIME (not addressed in the
>context), that would not be related to the Perfect
>Tense Form.
>
>I would agree with Fanning concerning the dual
>temporal nature of the Perfect Indicative, but not if
>he means that the state obtained goes beyond a PAST,
>contextually developed, Deictic Point. All the Perfect
>Indicative would imply is that an event/action took
>place anterior to the DC, and that at the time of the
>DC, the state obtained still held.
I'm not sure what you mean to be saying by this, Waldo. Normally the
deictic center of a "present perfect" is the NOW of the statement
containing that verb: hESTHKEN means "is now standing"; TEQNHKEN means "is
now dead." The verb form doesn't tell you anything about WHEN the action
implicit in the verb came to consummation, but it does tell you that the
consummated state obtains NOW. On the other hand, in the case of a
pluperfect, the deictic center is indeed in the past:hEISTHKEI means "was
standing" at some point in the past; (E)TEQNHKEI means "was dead" or "had
died" as of some point in the past.
--
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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