[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Sep 8 07:51:45 EDT 2006


Perhaps related to Randall's remarks is the concern that immediately  
came to my mind
about "remoteness" -- wouldn't it make more sense to distinguish the  
moods (indicative,
subjunctive, optative, imperative) in terms of "remoteness"?

But in that regard, I've always found it curious that the result  
clause of a counter-factual
condition is generally formulated in ancient Greek with an  
indicative, e.g. HLQON AN
("I would have come") or HRCOMHN AN ("I would be coming"). Yea,  
verily: forms
with the augment are thus used. Can anyone offer a satisfactory  
explanation for that?

Indeed, aren't there occasions in the GNT when an imperfect WITHOUT  
an AN is
used in a conditional sense? Perhaps this has nothing to do with  
aspect theory,
but it does seem (to me, at least) rather curious.

On Sep 8, 2006, at 7:16 AM, Randall Buth wrote:

> Con egrapsen
>> On the issue of the augment, I totally agree that it is a weakness in
> Porter's analysis. However, I think it grammaticalizes remoteness  
> rather
> than past time. Remoteness is a spatial category that can  
> accommodate past
> time in its pragmatic usage, but also other types of remoteness,  
> such as
> logical remoteness, which we see in the protasis of second class  
> conditional
> sentences expressing unreality.
>> McKay first posited remoteness as the possible meaning of the  
>> augment back
> in his 1965 article. It think it was footnote 22 from memory.  
> Porter built
> on the idea of remoteness, but did not connect it to the augment.
>> This I think deals with all of the objections put by Don,  
>> including the
> absence of the augment outside the indicative mood. The spatial  
> value of
> remoteness is only expressed in the indicative mood, just as other  
> analyses
> claim of past tense.>
>
>
> The problem with 'remoteness' as an analysis is that it is an admitted
> spatial metaphor for something that is not spatial. the metaphor
> allows people to hide from reality. It doesn't explain why people
> don't/didn't  say
> *AURION HLQON as in
>
> A: DEI SE ELQEIN KAI OUK HLQES SHMERON! you need to come and did  
> not come today.
> B: *AURION HLQON *I came tomorrow.
>
> The reason the above is unacceptable is because there is a time
> component within the aorist indicative that contravenes co-occurence
> with AURION. (alternatively, 1, one could claim that the Greek is
> good. [Please present more than one good example! I can't imagine the
> context but it should be a humdinger.] Or 2, one could define
> "tomorrow" as non-remote, but that just plays the same metaphor trick
> from the other direction, using a spatial metaphor to define a time
> word. You can say equally non-remtote EXQES HLQON, just not *AURION
> HLQON.)
> As Cyndy pointed out in the thread between her lines, the reason that
> some NT Greek folk have dropped time out of their description of the
> verb is because they apriori demand a "unique always true single
> meaning" for aorist indicative. But only artificial languages have
> "unique always true single meaning" structures. Hey, the French can
> use the future in a past tense narrative. Does that mean that the
> future is not the future? Absolument pas. the French just invent a
> category called "historic future".
>
> But the point of this note is that when we see language use
> constraining the verbs in regards to time, then we need to find a
> theoretical way to include a time component in the affected verb
> categories. A corollary of this, is that people need to recognize that
> language use always produces fuzzy boundaries with their systems.
> Every language I've ever learned sufficiently well, and I've learned a
> few.
>
> I also believe that one of the biggest problems with ancient Greek and
> dead languages is that the analysts don't try to use the language or
> the system they are proposing.  There is a  phenomenon of a language
> self-correcting the learner if it is used. You don't even need
> speakers to correct you, just eyes. I remember once in Hebrew thinking
> that I should be able to use a phrase and then follow with the vav
> hahippux. I started to find examples in both the Hebrew Bible and
> Moabite stone. So I know the structure fits the language, even though
> I've later heard otherwise very knowledgeable scholars try to amend
> such "ungrammaticality". (See Is 6:1, Gn 22:3)
>
> But I've never run into *AURION HLQON.
> This should send red flags up to those who advocate an absolute
> removal of time from the Greek aorist indicative. (PS: I truly hope
> your dissertation is approved ASAP, and your're probably happy that
> I'm not on your committee :-). There is life after a dissertation and
> people are allowed to change their views. they are even more free to
> do so. Get your drivers license, then enjoy the ride.)
>
> So I constrain the metaphor of "remoteness of the augment" (or of the
> aorist) to include a time component in the indicative. (this is what
> McKay does, too, at some point if I'm not mistaken, though he may not
> want to highlight that.) If the SPATIAL metaphor  (for something
> without space!) is defined to include a temporal component, then
> "remoteness" becomes a fine metaphor. If the time component is masked
> in certain unreal and habitual environments, so what? C'est la langue.
> In my eyes this is a tempest in a teapot. having said that, I am very
> grateful that some exegesis based on brittle application of
> kinds-of-action (a semantic property of a word) metaphors has been
> exposed by the discussion of aspect (a subjective category of
> presentation). Students need to be careful with their metaphors.
>
> ERRWSO
> Randall Buth
>
>
>
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
> שלום לכם וברכות
> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> randallbuth at gmail.com
> ---
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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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