[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist Tense-Aspects
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Thu Sep 14 07:23:39 EDT 2006
Cindy EGRAPSE PERI Jude 14
>It's wonderful to be in agreement and to see you support the argument
for aspect here--
>you have given a vintage aspect explanation. However, I wouldn't say
HLQEN causes the
>change in the speaker's viewpoint, as much as expresses a change.
>
>And yes, context supplies the 'future' here...just as I have been saying.
>
>I also understand this usage is not widespread.
Yes, it is nice to be able to read the same message and get the same
interpretation. If we do.
It is also nice to see you admit that this usage is not widespread.
You do not explain, of course, how your theory predicts such limited
attestation, such "not widespread-ness".
I submit that one of us is reading the signals 'inside-out'.
Let us look at Jude 14.
We agree that 'context' (in this case encyclopedic background
knowledge) provides the future setting for the verb HLQEN.
Randall (me) argues that HLQEN refers backwards in time which results
in an understanding that the author has taken a vantage point (deictic
centre) in the future and is looking back in time to the 'coming'.
Cindy (you) argues above that HLQEN expresses a change in the
speaker's viewpoint. to be honest, I cannot see how that lines up with
your theoretical position or differs from my own. Why would the
deictic centre have to move in Cindy's theory? The aorist indicative
would simply refer to an event that happens to be future. the only
reason for moving the deictic centre would be if it were necessary to
include a semantic feature of 'non-future' time.
the limited attestation of such structures and contexts also needs explaining.
Randall claims that the change in deictic centre is a complication,
and takes extra processing energy. Within a Relevance Theory framework
that will naturally be less common. My approach explains the
infrequent attestation, the rarity.
Cindy's "vintage aspect explanation" might imply that Jude 14 is 'not
complicated', that it would be expected that an aorist indicative
would be a category for referring to a future event. This does not
explain the rarity.
As mentioned in another email, modern linguistics likes to test
theories to see if they predict correctly. Let us look at *AURION
HLQEN.
Randall predicts that AURION, when occurring WITHIN a clause (i.e., is
part of a predication), AURION tomorrow' keeps the predication ahead
of the deictic centre. For example, if today is Thursday, the deictic
centre cannot jump forward to Shabbat and then call Friday AURION
'tomorrow'. AURION requires that the deictic centre (speaker's
viewpoint) is a day before AURION. One cannot take up a future
viewpoint and call the previous day AURION 'tomorrow'. Thus, the
flexibility in change of speaker's viewpoint that allowed Randall to
correctly read Jude 14 is blocked from a clause like *AURION HLQEN and
*HLQEN AURION.
Randall therefore predicts that *AURION HLQEN will be very very very
... rare, or impossible and unattested in natural ancient Greek. That
is exactly what we find. I do not know of one example of a clause with
an aorist indicative main verb and AURION as a co-occurring adverb to
that verb. I am even willing to grant that an example may be found.
For example, in writing this email I have said "*HLQEN AURION". So in
a perverse way it is attested in 2006 CE by a non-mothertongue
speaker, but only as an example of denial.
Cindy does not predict that *AURION HLQEN will not occur. Her "vintage
aspect" viewpoint on the aorist indicative would actually expect to
find examples. There is nothing in her theory to block such
occurrence. But the data does not come to her rescue. A mispredicting
theory needs to be re-written or constrained.
Bottom line:
Randall's theory explains the extreme rarity (0 attestations) of *HLQEN AURION.
Cindy's theory does not explain the extreme rarity (0 attestations) of
*HLQEN AURION.
Randall's theory is to be preferred.
Greek aorist indicatives include '+past' as a semantic feature. (PS:
substituting another name like '+remoteness' does not change the fact
that 'remoteness' would need a time feature within its definition in
order to correctly explain and predict attested patterns. Which brings
one back to the truth claim of the statement "Greek aorist indicatives
include '+past' as a semantic feature.")
The modern universe is non-Euclidian and the Greek verb is more
complex than "aspect-only indicatives". Both time and aspect are
components of aorist indicatives and imperfect indicatives.
PS: Did we reach the same interpretation of Jude 14? Maybe yes, maybe
no. Randall's interpretation detects that the speaker has signalled a
'jump', a change of viewpoint. If Cindy's interpretation also detects
that the speaker has signalled a 'jump', then we have the same
interpretation on this verse. If not, then there is at least a subtle
difference. We can both account for Jude14, but which one is correct?
The one that correctly predicts patterns of aorist indicatives within
the Greek verb universe. The tense-aspect approach.
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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