[B-Greek] Switching Imperfectives to Perfectives

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Sat Dec 17 03:19:32 EST 2005


Dear Carl,

I agree that there are clear patterns between the Greek "tenses". I have a
few comments to your second paragraph though.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at ioa.com>
To: "Mitch Larramore" <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com>
Cc: "B Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 3:10 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Switching Imperfectives to Perfectives


> This sounds a bit like "let's throw out all the grammar books, since
> there really are no rules governing the way Greeks (and non-Greeks)
> speak/spoke or write/wrote. I don't think matters are quite so
> chaotic; while one may explain exceptional constructions in terms of
> broader categories of aspect, most Greek present tenses and aorists
> are NOT confusing and are, in fact, pretty intelligible to anyone
> who's spent a couple years or more with Greek.
>
> One thing that those learning Greek must come to terms with, however,
> is that some idiomatic usages may fly in the face of what one has
> learned about present tense (and I think it's the present tense
> that's the hardest to pin down). There are particular verbs that
> behave in particular ways -- you just have to learn them: ERREI is a
> present tense with a perfective meaning: "he/she's GONE, vanished,
> left without a trace" or hHKW: "I've arrived." There are the perfect
> tenses with present temporal force: OIDA, "I know" and hESTHKA, "I am
> standing." I suspect there are idiomatic verb usages such as these in
> most languages. But these do not mean that the patterns one has
> learned are pointless.
>

I do not think we need to look at the verbs above and their aspects as
special cases. If we abandon the complete/completed-incomplete view and use
the relationship between reference time and event time instead, the examples
may perhaps be explained as normal cases.

In Hebrew,  resultative situations abound, and while Greek is different, 
such
situations are found there as well. By "resultative situations"  I mean
instances where an agent leads a patient through the end of ac action and
into a resultant state, and where the stress is on the state.

One example is Mark 2:5 AFIENTAI SOU hAI hAMARTIAI

The verb AFIHMI can refer to something that is abandoned or forgiven. The
use of the sense "to forgive" means that an end is reached, yet Greek
present is used. I use the term Aktionsart to refer to a lexical
characteristic of a verb, such as durativity and punctiliarity. In the case
of AFIEMI the Aktionsart is durative and telic (or, some would say
punctiliar), but that is Aktionsart and not aspect. Therefore, when present
is used with such a verb, we need not speak of a perfective situation that
is expressed by present, but we can speak of a verb whose Aktionsart
conceptually includes the end of the action which is expressed by the
imperfective aspect. This combination can have a resultative force as in
Mark 2:5: what is made visible in this clause is the state of having been
forgiven. This means that while the end of the action is included in the 
imperfective perspective, the end of the resultant state is not included. 
Therefore, the definition of the imperfective aspect as making visible a 
small part of progressive action (or progressive action and continuing 
state), holds.
I think we can view ERREI and
hEHW in a similar way. (Fanning (p. 202) calls phrases similar to the one
above "instantaneous present," but this is criticized by Wallace (p. 509).

A study of several thousand perfects is necessary to understand the force of
perfect. I have not done this yet, so I am undecides as to its real
meaning. The complexity of this issue is illustrated by Heb 11:17.
Here the verb PROSFERW occurs two times, one as perfect and one as
imperfect. The Aktionsart of the verb is durative and telic, and it is used
to refer to a past situation that is completed. While the aspect can be used
to make visible different sides of an event and keep others invisible, the
aspect cannot signal anything that is contrary to fact. We know from the
context that Abraham did not offer Isaac, and the NIV´s egressive rendering
of the imperfect "was about to sacrifice" is fine. But what about the NIV´s
past rendering of the perfect, "offered Isaac as a sacrifice"?  It accords
with the standard view of Greek perfect, but it is contra-factual, and
therefore cannot be correct.  One could argue that the first use of PROSFERW
only means the Abraham brought Isaac to the place of offering, and therefore
the action was completed. But that means that the verb is used in two
different senses in the same verse, which is not an attractive explanation.
The other alternative is that perfect in the same way as present can be used
in a conative sense (he tried to offer Isaac) or an egressive sense (he was
on the point of offering Isaac), and that the traditional view of perfect is
not correct.

I do not suggest that we throw our grammar books, but rather that we try new
approaches the the complicated issue of the meaning of the Greek "tenses".


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/


Best regards,

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo

















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