Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Biblical Greek morphology and syntax, aspect, linguistics, discourse analysis, and related topics
Post Reply
Matthew Longhorn
Posts: 756
Joined: November 10th, 2017, 2:48 pm
Contact:

Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

I recently acquired Soon Ki Hong’s book “The Greek Perfect Tense in the Gospel of Mark and the Epistle to the Romans”.
She argues for three basic rules to guide the interpretation of the perfect’s dual feature
1. A perfect finite verb with a non past indicative or a present non indicative highlights the subject’s anterior activity (either temporary or logically)
2. The perfect finite verb with a past indicative or aorist non-indicative highlights the subject’s present state resulting from an anterior activity
3. A perfect participle in connection with a substantive describes its dual feature. A perfect active tends to highlight anterior activity while still engaging its present state. A perfect middle/passive tends to highlight a present state resulting from an anterior activity.

I am about half way through and her views make sense to me but as ever, cautious of just accepting them without more sustained thought. Given that I have a day job and do this reading a s a hobby, the chances of me giving that necessary thought Ina timely manner is unfortunately low. I figured there are people more clever than me here who do this stuff as a living that may have some more immediate thoughts on it.

I was hoping our resident perfect experts who have written on the perfect tense (I am thinking e.g. Mike Aubrey or Steve Runge) May have read this book or her thesis and have some thoughts?

I have only given her “rules” as a summary of her views. I am really only after input from those who have read / interacted with it. I don’t expect all her thoughts to be clear from the above, but happy to post some clarifications if wanted from people who haven’t read it.
If you do want to read it, it is published by Peter Lang and is also on Amazon for an unfortunately high price.
serunge
Posts: 45
Joined: May 23rd, 2011, 11:07 am
Location: Bellingham, WA
Contact:

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by serunge »

Hi Matthew,

I have not read the book, but I did interact with her early on in the process with some recommendations. Like you, I would need to buy and read the book to have further thoughts. Crellin and Aubrey (especially in his SEBTS essay) have noted the significant impact that voice and the lexical semantics have in limiting the potential range of meaning. I really hope she has included these factors in her account. She was very keen to weigh in on Porter's prominence claims, so I'd be interested in reading her finds on the issue. I'll defer to Mike on her claims about the semantics, I'm still very much trying to catch up.
Steve Runge
Matthew Longhorn
Posts: 756
Joined: November 10th, 2017, 2:48 pm
Contact:

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

Thanks Dr. Runge.
Without going back through what I have read, she certainly references both Mike Aubrey and Robert Crellin in her work. I haven't seen any major interaction with them outside the theoretical underpinnings of her work yet, but I will look out for it.
She does discuss verbs in the ἵστημι family separately and further separates out γέγραπται, οἶδα and πέποιθα for separate treatment. As I haven't read her discussion of these verbs I can't comment yet on what she actually says.
I will try to post some quotes / thoughts when I finish the book on her interaction with the topics you mention.
Matthew Longhorn
Posts: 756
Joined: November 10th, 2017, 2:48 pm
Contact:

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Matthew Longhorn »

I have gone through most of the book now, when it comes down to the exegesis I can't see anything that really interacts with Crellin's material from the Greek Verb Revisited, or his book. The same goes for Mike Aubrey's work.
I haven't read all the book - it rapidly becomes repetitive, necessarily so for what she is trying to do. I have however skimmed it all and done key word searches in the kindle version.
She seems to argue that there is always a view of both anterior action and current situation, her rules seek to demonstrate which side of that opposition gets the focus. This doesn't take into account things like state predicates allowing for no real view of prior action in some situations.
Verbs like οἶδα are seen as still retaining a view of anteriority but focusing on current state
My understanding is that when the perfect οἶδα is associated with the aoristic objective part of the sentence, it highlights the subject’s present state of knowing which results from a prior knowledge. It seems that the speaker or writer chooses οἶδα when he needs to introduce the content of prior knowledge in the immediate context. I argue that the sentence including οἶδα is not used to indicate the highest prominence (frontground) in the larger context; rather it supports main events or themes in the larger context by way of introducing some prior knowledge.
There is some discussion around voice, but this seems largely limited to perfect participles. Nothing that I can recall seeing looking at transitivity scales and effects like detransitivisation (if that is a word?)


Part of her conclusion
My argument is that, regardless of genre difference, the perfect is chosen to indicate the dual feature of a present state resulting from anterior activity in an immediate context and function as background for main events or themes in a larger context. Thus, Porter’s suggestions of a third level of ‘frontground’ (the highest prominence) for the perfect are not valid.
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3350
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Though it's the most common perfect in the NT, I would just special case οἶδα and maybe some other really old perfects. They're basically linguistic fossils, and not really a good guide to the productive use of the perfect.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Carlson wrote: June 18th, 2020, 1:07 am Though it's the most common perfect in the NT, I would just special case οἶδα and maybe some other really old perfects. They're basically linguistic fossils, and not really a good guide to the productive use of the perfect.
In the colloquia, οἶδα is always rendered by a present tense in the Latin.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3350
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Barry Hofstetter wrote: June 18th, 2020, 11:39 am
Stephen Carlson wrote: June 18th, 2020, 1:07 am Though it's the most common perfect in the NT, I would just special case οἶδα and maybe some other really old perfects. They're basically linguistic fossils, and not really a good guide to the productive use of the perfect.
In the colloquia, οἶδα is always rendered by a present tense in the Latin.
Nice to know. (What are the colloquia to which you refer?)
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Soon Ki Hong on the perfect tense

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Carlson wrote: June 18th, 2020, 8:04 pm
Barry Hofstetter wrote: June 18th, 2020, 11:39 am
Stephen Carlson wrote: June 18th, 2020, 1:07 am Though it's the most common perfect in the NT, I would just special case οἶδα and maybe some other really old perfects. They're basically linguistic fossils, and not really a good guide to the productive use of the perfect.
In the colloquia, οἶδα is always rendered by a present tense in the Latin.
Nice to know. (What are the colloquia to which you refer?)
That's short hand for teaching manuscripts, such as the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana. Parallel columns with Greek and Latin, for the most part written to teach Greek speakers Latin (and very occasionally vice versa).
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Post Reply

Return to “Greek Language and Linguistics”