[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Sep 8 08:35:43 EDT 2006


On 9/8/06, Carl W. Conrad <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:
> 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?
>

Yes, good example. And not just indicative but PAST indicative. That
would seem to be the first layer of explanation of the augment.

A little bit related to English counterfactual "if he had done it
(=but he didn't) he would be rich". Perhaps related to the Arabic
conditionals where IZA 'if' is used with the suffix/past tense-aspect,
both for 'possible' and/or 'contrafactual'. There is
linguistic-universal discussion on this. For some inate human language
reason, contrafactuals like the definiteness that indicative
pasttenses convey.

Randall

> 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
> > ---
> > B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> > B-Greek mailing list
> > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>


-- 
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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