[B-Greek] SIGATW in 1 Cor 14:30
Kimmo Huovila
kimmo.huovila at helsinki.fi
Thu Oct 6 08:02:34 EDT 2005
On Tuesday 04 October 2005 20:24, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
> Mssrs. Huovila and Buth,
>
>
> On Sep 28, 2005, at 5:23 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:
>
> >
> > On Tuesday 27 September 2005 16:18, bitan buth wrote:
> >
> >> Can you use SIGA as something almost generic, unmarked?
> >> MALISTA.
> >>
> >
> > Yes, Tobit 10:7 seems to confirm this.
> >
>
> If we say that SIGAW in the present is pragmatically unmarked is it
> safe to conclude that the present has no (zero) semantic significance
> in this context? When a word is used in a certain form frequently we
> might suggest that the form does not draw attention to itself, that
> it is pragmatically unmarked. But to conclude that the form becomes
> devoid of semantic significance because it is pragmatically unmarked
> -- Do we really want to do this?
>
Just a quick thought. Perhaps it is good to separate pragmatic and semantic
marking (without going into all the arguments about the distinction between
semantics and pragmatics - I think it is somewhat arbitrary). With respect to
this case (perfective-imperfective contrast with a stative verb), the
imperfective carries less information and all the same information and more
is carried by the perfective form, as far as truth conditions are concerned.
I would say that with stative verbs, the present is always semantically
unmarked, whatever the pragmatic marking is in the case.
But truth conditions is not all of meaning.
Kimmo Huovila
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