[B-Greek] 1 Cor 14:5: present infinitive aspect
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun May 14 20:27:39 EDT 2006
On May 14, 2006, at 7:21 PM, Dave Smith (REL110, 211,212) wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Let me add one other piece of information that we all know, but
> have somehow
> overlooked. Both infinitives and participles are substantives in
> grammar and
> nature,
Unquestionably an infinitive is a substantive, but I really don't
know what it's supposed to mean when it is claimed that a participle
is a substantive; a participle functions in part adjectivally and in
part verbally.
> and being so, "both are indefinite in their bearing upon the limits
> of action..." (Dana and Mantey, 222). The infinitive in I
> Corinthians 14:5
> cannot dictate the action. The only action that can even be considered
> continuous, in the sense of on-going, would be the wishing, not the
> speaking. I actually think the reason Paul is using so many
> presents in this
> whole section is that the condition, or problem, was on-going, as
> he wrote.
> We also need to be careful in Corinthians, realizing that Paul
> sometimes
> quotes his opponents and sometimes speaks tongue-in-cheek. Anyway,
> as one
> post has already mentioned, the actually wish is that they would all
> prophesy, not all speak in tongues, and we know that the prophets
> were only
> to speak one at a time.
But, as has been noted previously in the thread, there are present
infinitive forms LALEIN in 1 Cor 14:5, 34, 35, and 39, and there is
an aorist infinitive form LALHSAI in 1 Cor 14:19 -- and I think
there's a difference, LALHSAI meaning something like "get spoken"--
in terms of a completed action--, and LALEIN "speak" -- in terms of
an active process.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Iver Larsen" <iver at larsen.dk>
> To: "b-greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 05:36
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] 1 Cor 14:5: present infinitive aspect
>
>
>>> Along the lines of Iver's suggestion, Scott's and my friend was
>>> in fact
> given all
>>> the occurrences in the New Testament and the LXX of the present
> infinitive
>>> LALEIN to look up and see if they require or expect the
>>> translation "to
> speak
>>> CONTINUALLY." This apparently was not convincing.
>>>
>>> So, to be even more specific, this is what Scott's and my friend
>>> wrote
> (on
>>> another forum) that caused us both to question him on his insistence
> that
>>> LALEIN in 1 Cor 14:5 means to continually speak in tongues 24/7.
>>> I only
> quote
>>> it all to show that this "interpretation" is also being laid at
>>> the feet
> of Greek Profs
>>> Jay and Blaiklock:
>>>
>>>> 1 Cor 14:5 -- "QELW DE PANTAS hUMAS LALEIN GKWSSAIS" -- "I wish, I
>>>> want, I desire ALL of you to speak CONTINUALLY in tongues."
>>>> "I want" -- Behind Paul's words is the Holy Spirit. PAUL'S
>>>> DESIRE IS
> GOD'S
>>>> DESIRE TOO.
>>>> "all of you" -- every Xtian without exception, because 1 Cor is
> addressed to
>>>> "ALL that in EVERY place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our
>>>> Lord"
> (1:2)
>>>> "CONTINUALLY" -- because LALEIN is a present infinitive, which,
>>>> says
> Dr.
>>>> Eric G. Jay in his "NT Greek" (p.101) "The present infinitive is
>>>> used
> of an
>>>> action which is prolonged or repeated ... IT IS ONLY EMPLOYED WHEN
>>>> ATTENTION IS BEING DRAWN TO THE PROLONGING OR REPETITION OF
>>>> THE ACTION."
>>>> He cites "hUPAGW hALIEUEIN" -- "I'm going back to the fishing
>>>> trade"
> (as
>>>> opposed to a nice afternoon's one-off fishing) by Peter in John
>>>> 21:3.
> And one
>>>> sleepless night I discovered my old Bible College lecturer Prof
>>>> E. M.
> Blaiklock
>>>> made the same point in "The Bible and I" p.124 where he
>>>> translates John
> the
>>>> Baptist's "He must increase, I must decrease" as "He must
>>>> CONTINUALLY
>>>> INCREASE, I must CONTINUALLY DECREASE."
>>
>> But isn't your friend then guilty of misquoting Dr. Eric Jay?
>> The quote specifically mentions two of the subsets of the
>> imperfective
> aspect:
>> 1. Prolonging (continuous)
>> 2. Iterative (repeated)
>>
>> In the case of 1 Cor 14:5, the intended aspect is clearly
>> iterative, not
> continuous, and that agrees with Dr. Jay's
>> general statement.
>>
>> I mentioned the third one which I called general (I can see from Dave
> Smith that others call it customary, unless
>> customary is intended to cover both general and iterative, like
>> going back
> to fishing, not 24/7, but repeatedly. I don't
>> have a copy of Dana and Mantey.)
>>
>> The quote from Blaiklock indicates that we really need to look at
>> both
> grammatical aspect and lexical aspect. Certain
>> lexical items lend themselves naturally to be used with one aspect
>> rather
> than another. Some words stand for a process
>> like "increase", and those are naturally used with an imperfective
>> aspect,
> at least if the process is in focus. Whether
>> the increase is in the form of a gradual slope or individual steps
>> doesn't
> really matter. If you study the usage of the
>> word AUXANW (grow, increase), you will notice that it normally
>> occurs in
> the imperfective aspect, either present or
>> imperfect "tense". When it is used in the aorist, the focus is on the
> growth event as a whole. One helpful way of
>> looking at the perfective versus imperfective aspect is to note
>> that with
> the perfective aspect the event is generally
>> looked at from the outside as a whole unit. In the imperfective
>> aspect, it
> is as if you are standing inside together
>> with the actor. Your focus is on the continued, iterative or
> timeless/general aspect of the event rather than the
>> completed event.
>>
>> To give a brief comment to Eddie, I am not saying that the aorist
>> aspect
> is always best explained as a one-time event. I
>> said that in the case of this particular verb in the aorist
>> infinitive,
> that is a reasonable description. I suggest you
>> take the time to look up the Greek data yourself.
>>
>> As the imperfective aspect can be described as normally employing
>> one of
> the following:
>> 1. Continuous aspect
>> 2. Iterative aspect
>> 3. General aspect (used in general, timeless statements)
>>
>> so the perfective aspect can be differentiated into:
>>
>> 1. Non-continuous
>> 2. Non-iterative
>> 3. Specific
>>
>> The first two of these (or maybe all three) have traditionally
>> been called
> punctiliar in Greek grammar, and the
>> imperfective durative, but I prefer to use words that are used more
> generally in modern descriptive linguistics.
>>
>> Iver Larsen
>>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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