[B-Greek] atelic histrocal present
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Apr 10 03:47:55 EDT 2009
On Apr 9, 2009, at 12:38 PM, Randall Buth wrote:
>
> >* What I do know
> *>* is that the historic presents occur in sequences that are typically
> *>* sequential and
> *>* would have most simply been encoded as aorist, like "X comes and
> *>* did" where
> *>* the coming had to be complete in order to do the 'did'.
> *
> This is why I was tempted to say the proposition looks a little bit
> like a tautology, the pattern required by the definition seems to rule
>
> out atelic verbs by definition. Look at the following example:
>
> MATT. 3:9 KAI MH DOXHTE LEGEIN EN hEAUTOIS: PATERA ECOMEN TON ABRAAM.
> LEGW GAR hUMIN hOTI DUNATAI hO QEOS EK TWN LIQWN TOUTWN EGEIRAI TEKNA
> TWi ABRAAM.
>
> Here we have to several present tense indicatives, LEGW which is
> telic, ECOMEN which is atelic but not historic, DUNATAI which is
> atelic but not historic.
>
> Elizabeth Kline
>
> But I am not claiming that it is iimpossible for a historic present to
> naturally encode to an imperfective, only that that is the norm. I do
> not know of my own knowledge that a story could not begin
> HN DE LEPROS 'there was a leper' . . .
> or that a historic present might be used
> ESTIN DE LEPROS.
> Rijksbaron does make that claim, which needs checking out and
> which would only strengthen my own claim. i.e., that the
> historic present is a rhetorical device of a semantic marker, that
> it uses its semantic marking against the grain for rhetorical
> effect and therefore is ABUSED by the aspect only people when
> they claim that they have no problem whatsoever with an
> no-time whatesoever aspect theory. If Rijksbaron is correct, then
> the historic present is used in cases where both the time and aspect
> are being used rhetorically/pragmatically. If not, then at least the
> majority of cases is a pragmatic play on the aspect and tense, with
> the remaining cases only a play on the tense. In either case, the
> aspect-only/no-tiime people are pulling the wool over
> students eyes', maybe their own, too. They make students
> feel guilty/unsupported by claiming that 30% of Mark's presents
> negate a tense theory but 100% fit an aspect theory. In Hebrew
> we say פויה, whichmight be etymological calque with
> Greek "φευ!", don't know.
>
> Randall Buth
>
PS: on second thought, 'abuse' is too colloquial and potentially emotional,
but the point remains that the evidence brought forth to negate tense
is false evidence. Let the students learn real Greek and deal
with real evidence.
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list