[B-Greek] Can the Imperfect not be Continuous?

Richard Lindeman oblchurch at msn.com
Tue Dec 14 17:42:55 EST 2010


I am not comfortable with the category "instantaneous imperfect" either. It
sounds like a contradiction in terms.  It may very well be as Dr. Runge
indicates, that the speech being introduced is incomplete and that the
imperfect is therefore connecting a series of statements together.

But there is also another possibility. Imperfect may not be communicating
"ongoing" or "incomplete".  At times I think that imperfect simply takes one
up close and into the ongoing action... Or in the case of speech brings the
reader up close and into the actual conversation.

Rich Lindeman


On 12/14/10 12:20 PM, "b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org"
<b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

> 
> Hi Carl,
> 
> Thanks for posting the head up about the blog, I had not gotten that far yet.
> It seems to me that it would be more useful to describe the imperfect as
> "incomplete" rather than "continuous" if one is going with a single
> descriptive term.
> 
> Regarding the instantaneous imperfect, I just posted an excerpt of the
> Discourse Grammar of the GNT that discusses the specific question on my blog.
> It is taken from chapter 7 on redundant quotative frames. Here is the link:
> 
> http://www.ntdiscourse.org/2010/12/instantaneous-imperfects-in-the-greek-new-t
> estament/
> 
> 
> Steven E. Runge, DLitt
> Scholar-in-Residence
> Logos Bible Software
> srunge at logos.com
> www.logos.com
> www.ntdiscourse.org





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