[B-Greek] How to avoid an Imperfective aspect in the Present Tense; -DOK- and -DOIK-

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Sat Apr 28 08:09:28 EDT 2007


I would like to 'amen' what Iver has said and to add a point about
individual lexical considerations.

"

> Hi, Mitch,
>
>
> In my experience with various languages, aspect takes priority over time. A perfective verb form
>
> would usually refer to past action, but can sometimes refer to present or future when the aspect of
>
> completedness is more important than the time reference.
>
> It also depends on the semantics of the verb. Some verbs commonly go with a perfective aspect others
>
> with an imperfective aspect.
>
> In the two examples below, one can be somewhat misled by English translations that use a present
>
> tense. I would not call your examples timeless action, although the second can be considered a
>
> timeless rule.
>
> >* Dr. Porter has a section on Aorist for timeless
>
> *>* action, and includes these two examples:
>
> *>*
> *>* Mk 1.11
> *>* SU EI hO hUIOS MOU hO AGAPHTOS, EN SOI EUDOKHSA
> *
> What about: You are my beloved son. I have put my stamp of approval on you.
>
> (The verb EUDOKEW may indicate a feeling of contentedness in the present tense, but in aorist it is
>
> a verb that indicates that a decision has been reached based on an evaluation.)
>
> >* Lk 7.35
> *>
> * EDIKAIWQH hH SOFIA APO PANTWN TWN TEKNWN AUTHS
> *
> Wisdom has been vindicated from all its children.
>
> That is, those who accept and act on words of wisdom have always in the past proved such words to be
> right, and based on that experience, this is a general rule. One has to act on claimed words of
>
> wisdom in order to know whether they are truly words of wisdom.
>
> The parallel statement in Mat 11:18 has APO TWN ERGWN AUTHS.
>
> Iver Larsen
>
> "

There is also an idiosyncratic dimension that can arise with any word.
For example, neither EUDOKHSAI nor DOKHSAI occurs as a "perfect active".

Someone might say, why not, why can't we just make such words *DEDOKHKA and
*HUDOKHKA?
Well, because they were not part of the language, people didn't use them in
Hellenistic Greek.

That means that for the word EUDOKHSAI the "perfect" was not an option for
the perfective aspect in the present. I cannot really come up with a good
reason why the active perfect of the DOKHSAI was not used, except to suggest
that perhaps another word DEDOIKENAI 'to fear' DEDOIKA "I am afraid, have
become gripped by fear" was somehow felt to be so close as to block the use
of *DEDOKHKENAI. Perhaps also because the perfect middle DEDOXQAI acquired
an idiomatic meaning 'to be decreed'. Please note that DEDOIKA 'I have
feared' is interesting in the other direction, it is one of several greek
perfect-formed verbs that function as "present" verbs. In addition, it
developed two perfect-stemmed infinitives DEDIENAI and DEDOIKENAI. Go
figure! That such verbs are special cases of a "perfect" swallowing up
"present" functions  can be shown to be real from two directions. 1) The
'present' of such verbs is not in use (an argument from silence, as it were)
and 2) in indirect discourse one finds the perfect and pluperfect appearing
where one would expect 'present' and 'aorist' non-indicatives.

so back to Mark 1:11, one must add the special nature of the verb EUDOKHSAI
into the picture. A perfect didn't exist and the aorist had to be used for
"perfect" functions. You may have noticed Iver's use of the English 'present
perfect' in his translation. This is one of the fun parts about learning any
language and following it into all its 'nooks and crannies'. Every language
has 'weak spots', places where the structures and vocabulary of a language
'paint themselves into a corner', where the language develops and forces
particular idioms or risks ambiguities. Often, such weak spots will
metamorphicise (change) over the centuries and develop simpler, more
flexible, and more definite structures or vocab. We can see this all of the
time in Greek where irregular verbs get 'regularized' and their paradigm
simplifies or fills out between 'classical' 'Hellenistic' 'Byzantine' or
'modern'.

ERRWSQE
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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