[B-Greek] PAS and Connecting Vowel
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Sun Apr 22 05:41:34 EDT 2007
> 4. PAS and Connecting Vowel (Delbert Flora)
> 5. continuous and undefined aspect (Delbert Flora)
> 7. Re: continuous and undefined aspect (Mitch Larramore)
> From: "Delbert Flora" <delbert.flora at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [B-Greek] PAS and Connecting Vowel
>
> Thank you all for your most informative answers to my previous question. I
> can see this is the right place to ask Greek questions.
>
> I have two others for now, if I may.
>
> A. On PAS, he says "unlike other adjectives, PAS usually is in the
> predicate
> position when modifying a noun." Is there a reason for this?
Your answer can come in two flavors, one that you need to know, the other
that leads to linguistic theory.
What you need to know is what any child would learn:
OUTWS ESTIN 'that's the way it is'
or if you were learning Arabic, "min aLLa", or Hebrew "kaxa".
The other answer enters linguistic theory: why are human languages organized
the way they are, and why do general quantifiers like 'all' have special
rules/positions/restrictions in a language? This last question will not help
you learn any language, but is what linguists like to discuss.
B. On the Connecting Vowel (also called a Thematic Vowel), he informs his
> readers that their purpose is to help with pronunciation; it is easier to
> pronounce LEGOMEN than LEGMEN.
>
> But in glancing ahead, I noticed that the difference between LUOMEN
> (Indicative) and LUWMEN (Subjunctive) seems to be this Connecting Vowel.
> It
> gives the impression that this Connecting Vowel is doing more work than
> just
> phonology. Does the Connecting Vowel also, at least on occasion, determine
> the Mood?
As you have already understood, the graphemes OMEN and the WMEN are "emic",
they distinguish meaning within the language system and are not simply extra
sound like the 'a' in front pharyngeal sounds of Hebrew words like
"LI-ShLOaH" or the name YESHUa`.
You happened to pick two forms that were homonyms in the first century, they
were pronounced the same. The same priniciple about 'linking vowels' would
also apply to LUETE or LUEIS and to LUHTE and LUHiS ('H' for
UPOTAKTIKH/subjunctive). You need to know these words as given. You can add
LOUETE and LOUEIS, too, 'to wash'. Though these last two words were
distinguished in the first century from LUETE and LUEIS. The 'E', 'EI', and
'H' are not optional in any of these forms, and were distinguish in speech
in the first century. They were phonemic, as well as OU and U, even before
vowels.
Grammar books like to talk about the history of a language, something that
can actually slow down the learner. Imagine learning to speak English
through a filter of receiving explanations about how the vowels shifted
between the time of Chaucer and Shakepeare. Vital and interesting stuff, to
be sure, but not necessary to begin learning, understanding and USING modern
english.
From: "Delbert Flora" <delbert.flora at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [B-Greek] continuous and undefined aspect
> The present tense can indicate "continuous" or "undefined" action. (p.
> 135)
>
> I've read that the aorist tense verb is "undefined," while Mounce includes
> present tense verbs as well with this aspect. Can both aorist and present
> tense verbs have undefined aspect?
See below for a joint answer.
From: Mitch Larramore <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] continuous and undefined aspect
> > The present tense can indicate "continuous" or
> > "undefined" action. (p. 135)
> >
> > I've read that the aorist tense verb is "undefined,"
> > while Mounce includes
> > present tense verbs as well with this aspect. Can
> > both aorist and present
> > tense verbs have undefined aspect?
>
> My teacher took that statement to mean that the
> Present Tense can be TRANSLATED as an undefined aspect
> IN ENGLISH ('I study,' rather than 'I AM studyING').
> But ALL Present Tense verbs denote action "in
> progress." We were taught not to use the term
> "continuous" because it implied that the action "keeps
> on going," whereas the idea of "in progress" does not
> imply an action keeps on going. So, the Present Tense
> portrays the action as CURRENTLY in progress, whereas
> an Aorist Tense denotes an action as having simply
> occurred.
>
> Mitch Larramore
> Sugar Land, Texas
>
This is a problem of trying to learn a language through a metalanguage. You
will learn to take all "explanations" with a grain of salt, including this
one.
English speakers do not usually refer to an English verb as "undefined", so
either the Mounce or Larramore explanation could potentially mislead a
learner.
Other people might call "I study" a habitual tense (or aspect), or even an
"omnitemporal" since it often applies to any potential time.
I am not sure what Mounce was referring to when calling a "present tense"
'undefined'. And I do not care, in the sense that I do not need to know
whatever he meant in order to know Greek. Perhaps Mounce was referring to a
special usage of the narrative present tense, where a present tense is
virtually interchangeable with a narrative aorist tense. Perhaps he was
referring to an omnitemporal "habitual". Perhaps something else.
Personally, I find the name "undefined" very misleading in English, even for
the AORISTOS tense and aspect. The Greeks developed the name, but they did
not mean that there was no aspectual definition whatsoever. They meant that
it did not have the extra features of the following aspects (using their
terms):
ENESTWS ('standing in the middle', "present"): adding "+ being open-ended"
PARAKEIMENOS ('remaining, lying by', "perfect"): adding "+ (resulting)
state"
MELLWN ('going to happen', "future"): adding "+ intention, purpose"
AORISTOS ('aorist', "perfective aspect"): that is, without any EXTRA
definition, "none of the above", not adding anything.
Linguists would call the Greek aorist aspect the "perfective" aspect in that
it is viewing the "whole". It does not differentiate pieces of the event or
look at a special or partial state. It simly refers to the whole event.
When the AORISTOS is an indicative tense, it refers to what is sometimes
called an English simple past. "He studied" versus "he was studying"
(open-ended).
So the meaning of AORISTOS is not the literal meaning of the word, but how
the category functions within the language and within the verb system. The
aorist tense is the simple past, and the aorist aspect (i.e., the
non-indicative functions) is the "perfective" or "whole" or 'including an
end point'.
And remember the word about 'salt' at the beginning of this last note.
ERRWSO
Randall
--
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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