[B-Greek] Relative time

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Mar 16 06:07:51 EDT 2009


On Mar 13, 2009, at 5:19 PM, Jerry Reimer wrote:

> Another that slipped between the cracks and wound up in B-Greek
> Bounces; please note that messages intended for distribution to the
> list should be sent to
> <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>:
>
> From: "Jerry Austin Reimer" <jerry.a.reimer at gmail.com>
> Date: March 13, 2009 12:48:15 PM EDT
> To: <b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Relative time
>
> Zerwick says that " . . . Greek does not express relative time as
> such . . . " Out of context (Biblical Greek, p. 98), yes, but seems to
> be a general statement. If this is true, could someone please explain
> what is meant by this. It seems to me that, for example, verbals
> derive their time relative to a finite verb. If that is not relative
> time then I do not know what relative time is. Even if aspect is
> largely determinative of tense choice, it seems that there is still
> relative time somewhere in there. I am out of my depth with this so if
> anyone could give me a lesson on this I would appreciate it. Of
> course, if the statement of Zerwick is not true then that is the end
> of it. Or is it?


I hesitate to say anything about this, but the original message, which  
I forwarded myself from a BG-Bounce, has gone without response thus  
far; if I do say something that the people who claim to know about  
aspect don't like or that they think they could better explain, then  
maybe something will emerge from their objections to what I say.

And what I say is simply this: it would appear that Zerwick has bought  
the argument of the Porter camp, that the Greek tense-forms don't  
indicate time at all but only aspect and that time and relative time  
are indicated by contextual indicators apart from the verb-form  
itself. I think that there are quite a few of us who believe that the  
indicative tense forms do indeed indicate time relative to a "deictic  
center" that is indicated somehow in the main clause. It is certainly  
commonly held that aorist participles preceding the main verb indicate  
action or process anterior to the time of the main verb, but there  
appear to be instances of aorist participles that indicate action  
contemporaneous or simultaneous to the time of the main verb or,  
occasionally even subsequent to that of the main verb. Future  
participles certainly indicate expectation or intention to act  
posterior to the time of the main verb. One quasi-heretical conviction  
that I hold is that, if one reads or has read a great deal of Greek  
(not the same texts over and over), one becomes sufficiently  
habituated to the way temporal relationship are expressed in ancient  
Greek that one can afford to ignore the controversies between aspect  
theorists over whether the ancient Greek verb expresses absolute or  
relative time apart from contextual indicators. There is considerable  
disagreement between individual verbal aspect theorists and the  
"camps" to which they belong. I'd say that, although verbal aspect  
theories have illuminated how we understand the workings of the tense- 
forms of Greek verb, it is also true that Greek has been spoken and  
read (and generally understood) for two or three millennia without  
recourse to verbal aspect theory.

One of the more recent threads on B-Greek that have focused on these  
matters was generated last November by the publication of Con  
Campbell's new book, _Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek_, a  
work that has been praised by some and faulted by others. That thread,  
entitled "[B-Greek] Verbal aspect theory -- misgivings" ran on Nov.  
15, 2008 and was succeeded by a collateral thread entitled, "[B-Greek]  
Is Greek Present a tense? Was Verbal Aspect theory -- misgivings"  
running on Nov. 17, 2008. These are accessible in the B-Greek archives  
at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2008-November/ 
047955.html (= http://tinyurl.com/c7tksa) continuing to http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2008-November/047980.html 
  (= http://tinyurl.com/cs5tu2). Several of our list-members who are  
academic linguists had some input in those threads.

All of which leaves the way open for anyone who does not think that  
"relative time" means fundamentally "time that one spends with one's  
relatives" (I once heard Maurice Sendak explain in a lecture that his  
marvelous children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are," was inspired  
by obligatory Sunday afternoons spent with aunts and uncles and  
cousins during his own childhood).

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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