[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Aspects

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Fri Sep 8 14:51:58 EDT 2006


Good point (pun on "deictic" intended), Eddie; and I'm sure that Carl  
has more to offer on the subject than he's letting on. Just to  
simplify your example in terms of contrary-to-fact, I'd put it, "If I  
had not missed the bus, etc." I think Carl is dead-on about  
remoteness. You see that plainly in the other moods for conditional  
sentences, especially the optative. As to the other side, I continue  
to see a pattern of redefining traditional ideas of tense in order to  
accommodate the apparent exceptions. The upside is offering a  
supposed Ockham's razor for explaining the exceptions (e.g.  
remoteness to cover contrary-to-fact), but the downside is being  
forced to abandon the same razor to explain the rule (e.g. being  
forced to treat past time as a "subset" of remoteness for narrative  
aorist indicatives). BTW, I am not suggesting that aspect has  
anything to do with tense, in case I may have given that impression.  
I do think those who want to ignore the augment as a tense/time  
marker would find it more fruitful to take a close look at Hebrew, or  
short of that, at Homer, Herodotus, and modern Greek, to see aspect  
and context alone being employed to represent tense. That would  
provide a palate-cleansing experience and a better background for  
viewing the highly inflected Greek that we see in Classical, the NT,  
etc.

Don Wilkins

On Sep 8, 2006, at 8:27 AM, Eddie Mishoe wrote:

> "Carl W. Conrad"  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?
>
> Well, I might contend that if the Deictic Center was
> understood as an ever-shifting reference point then
> such could answer your question. Statements are made
> in relation to some Deictic Point. HLQON AN would
> portray this event as an actual event obtaining
> (Indicative) PRIOR TO a contextually developed Deictic
> Center. Use English. "I would have come" to the party,
> but I missed the bus. Had he not missed the bus PRIOR
> TO the party beginning, he would have been there (he
> would have ACTUALLY been there had he caught the bus).
>
>
> Eddie Mishoe
> Pastor
>
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