[B-Greek] simple test *AURION HLQON

Donald Vance donaldrvance at mac.com
Tue Dec 13 10:01:03 EST 2005


Note that Randall's examples were in the future, not the past. Not all 
past events use a perfective form. The classic illustration of aspect 
in English underscores this: I killed the man. (perfective) I was 
killing the man when the phone rang. (imperfective) Randall's examples 
had a lexical indicator of the future (maHar) and then he asks why we 
don't get a suffix conjugation verb with that. Answer: because future 
events are, by definition, incomplete. What about a future perfect? 
Good question. That is why I am intrigued by what Rolf has proposed.

In my grammar of Classical Hebrew, I went with a totally aspectual 
understanding of the verb. I am rethinking that. Are there really any 
languages which are totally aspectual with no indicator of tense? For 
that matter, are there any purely temporal languages? English is 
clearly temporal/aspectual and I suspect Hebrew is too. Nevertheless, 
though Rolf's example of Jer 50:2-3 does not work (none of the verbs 
are future in reference) there are plenty of suffix conjugation verbs 
that are non-past, thus indicating that Hebrew's verbal system is not 
purely temporal, in fact, not primarily so. I think it is primarily 
aspectual, but is there no grammaticalization (how the ^&$ does one 
spell that!) of time in Hebrew? I'm not as sure as I was.

On the other hand, the Jude 1:14 example does not work either (and this 
is the objection to the Jer 50:2-3 example as well) since, in a 
prophetic context, one has to distinguish between the revelatory Event 
[E-r if you will] (i.e., the dream, oracle, word of God) and the Event 
portrayed [E-p] in the revelation. It is quite common in Hebrew 
prophetic texts to get the so-called prophetic perfect (i.e., a suffix 
conjugation verb with an apparent future reference) which, in fact, is 
not referring to the actualization of the prophesied event (E-p) but to 
the receipt of the revelation (E-r). For example, The Lord came with 
his angels... The past "came" is because this is in reference to the 
E-r, that is,  the prophet SAW (or whatever) this earlier. The actual 
"coming," the E-p, has not happened yet, so the actualization is in the 
future. This explains the use of the aorist in Jude for an event that 
has not occurred yet. Still, there may be other clearer examples of an 
aorist finite verbs in non-past contexts that would force one to 
conclude that Greek is also not a purely temporal language, either.

One more wrinkle for this discussion. In Ugaritic, it has been proposed 
that the language works differently in poetic texts than it does in 
prose texts and there is considerable data to suggest this. The poetic 
texts in the Hebrew Bible also show a difficult-to-decipher verbal 
system. In other words, in Hebrew the verbs that are problematic for 
understanding the verbal system tend to be found in poetic texts and 
some wonder if the fact that they are poetic is where the rub lies. Do 
Greek poetic texts (e.g., Homer--but this introduces a diachronic 
element into the discussion) evince a use of the verbal system that is 
different than Greek prose texts?

I'm still thinking this through and I look forward to Rolf further 
explaining his ideas.

Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance at oru.edu
donaldrvance at mac.com
On Dec 13, 2005, at 7:46 AM, Ken Penner wrote:

>> I am apparently missing your point Randall. By definition, an event
>> that has not happened yet is viewed as incomplete and hence uses an
>> imperfective.
>> Don Vance
>
> Hi Don,
> Are you saying that all future and present events should be expressed 
> using
> an imperfective form of the verb and all past events using a perfective
> form? If so, in your view, what is the difference between tense and 
> aspect?
>
> Ken Penner
> M.C.S. (Biblical Languages, Greek Verbal Aspect)
> Ph.D. (cand.), McMaster University
> pennerkm at mcmaster.ca
> Flash! Pro vocabulary software: http://s91279732.onlinehome.us/flash or
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flash_pro/join
> Purchase: http://tinyurl.com/6tg2d
>




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