[B-Greek] Plato on tense-forms and time

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Jan 19 07:31:05 EST 2007


Ever since John Sanders mentioned a couple days ago that I had once  
cited a passage in Plato about Greek tense-forms and time-reference,  
I have myself been puzzled -- and I've been asked by a couple others  
to supply the citation. When first asked yesterday about it, I hadn't  
a clue what it was or where to look. This morning I think I have  
found it, and it's just possible that some others may have been  
curious about this matter. So here's the passage I think was being  
referred to by John Sanders.

On Jan 19, 2007, at 6:21 AM, Randall Buth wrote:

> I just saw this reference from the bg-list correspondence;
>
> "But after I read a piece from Plato that Dr. Conrad
> put up indicating that the Greeks in the classical period recognized
> tenseness in their verbs, "
>
> would you be able to supply that reference?
> From the context it looks buried in messages of years past.

You're NOT the only one to ask me that.
Buried indeed! I've had to use the "smart mailbox" feature of Mac OS  
X 10.4
to search through all my messages sent to B-Greek and containing any
reference to Plato -- 423 in all matching those criteria and going  
back to 1995!

I think it must be this from November 18, 2001 (where
my real concern was with middle and passive forms of GI{G}NOMAI):

"I should note that I have found one interesting passage in Plato's  
dialogue
Parmenides wherein both verb-forms are found together, apparently with a
distinction between the "middle" and the "passive"--in this instance  
in the
future tense. In a discussion of how "the One" is wholly removed from
participation in time and temporal change, At 141d-e Parmenides asks
Socrates, TO HN KAI TO GEGONE KAI TO EGIGNETO OU CRONOU MEQEXIN DOKEI
SHMAINEIN TOU POTE GEGONOTOS? and Socrates agrees. Then he asks TI  
DE? TO
ESTAI KAI TO GENHSETAI KAI TO GENHQHSETAI OU TOU EPEITA? and Socrates  
again
assents. The Loeb translator, Shorey, renders this as: ""Well, and do  
not
the words 'was,' 'has become,' and 'was becoming' appear to denote
participation in past time?" "Certainly."  "And 'will be,' 'will  
become,'
and 'will be made to become,' in future time?" "Yes." We shall have  
to say
that this text certainly implies that a distinction of semantic and
function was recognized by Plato as potentially present in the two
morphoparadigms, although I think further exploration of usage of
EGENHQHN/GENHQHSOMAI in the classical era would be needed to  
establish that
this was a regularly-observed distinction. Surely what Plato is  
attempting
here is to offer an exhaustive list of possible ways of expressing
participation in time."



Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at ioa.com or cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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