[B-Greek] TEQNHKEN and APEQANEN (was: John 11:21b & 11:32c: Does the MOU make a difference?)
Tony Pope
borikayaama_tekiri at sil.org
Fri Apr 8 05:53:47 EDT 2011
Already in the LXX (except for some apocryphal books) θνήσκω QNHSKW is virtually obsolete apart from the perfect forms τέθνηκα TEQNHKΑ etc. An explanation of this is given by J H Moulton in Vol 1 of his Grammar (pp. 112-14), see also Robertson p. 827.
If I understand it rightly, the compound verb ἀποθνήσκω APOQNHSKW focuses on the completion of the event, and because the moment when a person expires is the prominent part of the event of dying this compound eventually drove out the simplex (uncompounded) verb. These grammarians called this prefix a "perfectivizing" prefix. (Not to be confused with perfect tense.) Maybe someone can point me to more recent discussions of this.
But as regards the perfect tense Moulton says (114n3): "Τέθνηκα [TEQNHKA] is really the perfect of ἀποθνῄσκω [APOQNHiSKW]: a perfect needed no perfectivizing in a "point-word" like this."
Turning to Luke 8.49, I would say the perfect tense TEQNHKEN expresses the (supposed) definitive nature of the situation: unfortunately she's dead now and you can't do anything about it. I'm not sure this is necessarily "less emotional".
Why Luke reports Jesus using the aorist tense in 8.52 rather than the perfect seems more difficult to answer. Perhaps the ἀπο- (APO-) makes the denial that the girl had died more emphatic. Perhaps in the context of wailing (8.52a ἔκλαιον δὲ πάντες EKLAION DE PANTES) the prefix would indeed be heard as emphasizing the nuance of loss to the relatives (it is not the case that she died and is no more), whereas in other contexts the prefix would not have that effect.
Tony Pope
On 4/3/2011 9:26 AM, Iver Larsen wrote:
<snip>
>
> Is there a difference between QNHiSKW and APOQNHiSKW? If so, the first seems
> more matter-of-fact, clinical, less emotional. The second is more intensive and
> may focus on the loss that results from the death. Even animals and crops can
> die from the owner.
>
> I really don't know if these nuances are just imagined. In Luke 8:42 the young
> girl is APEQHNiSKEN. The messenger in v. 49 gives an objective, unemotional
> report: Your daughter TEQNHiKEN. In v. 52 Jesus said that she did not APEQANEN.
> He could have used TEQNHiKEN like the messenger. Why didn't he (in John's
> recounting)?
>
> It may be worth noting that QNHiSKW only occurs in the perfect in the NT (and
> pluperfect in 11:21 in Majority text), whereas APOQNHiSKW never does, although
> the perfect does occur outside the NT. Are they in complementary distribution
> without any difference in meaning? Or it could be that the (plu+)perfect forms
> of QNHiSKW focus on a state of being dead that belongs to clinical, detached
> language?
>
> Iver Larsen
>
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