[B-Greek] 1 John 4:2

Yancy W Smith yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Fri Mar 5 16:09:52 EST 2010


IMO, That is a powerful explanation. I would say that the perfect form  
has realizable semantic potentials that cause it to be "marked" (I.e.  
to require additional processing). If those those potentials are  
unrealized, one is left with a marked historical tense. Also, the  
additinal phonemic elements may contribute to markedbess.

Yancy

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 5, 2010, at 1:37 PM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:

> On Mar 5, 2010, at 2:09 PM, Yancy W Smith wrote:
>>
>> YWS wrote:
>>>
>>>> If there is any semantic distinction between aorist and perfect
>>>> here, it would seem to be one of emphatic affirmation.
>>
>> Elizabeth wrote:
>>>
>>> This is the final comment in your paragraph, placed there as a
>>> paragraph level focus constituent? You would understand the prefect
>>> as  "emphatic affirmation"; are you saying the perfect has a
>>> rhetorical function?
>>>
>>
>> YWS: Yes, the placement of my statement is of the "red herring" type.
>> My assumption is, and it would need to be argued, I know, is that
>> almost anything can have a rhetorical function. In linguistic terms
>> this is a corollary of how pragmatics "interferes" with grammar/ 
>> syntax.
>
> I don't suppose this is really an instance of what the academic  
> linguists
> mean when they speak of a "cancellable" feature of morphology: that
> a perfect tense may be equivalent to an aorist unless it has the  
> final position
> in the clause, when it is equivalent to a rhetorically emphatic  
> aorist.
>
> ELQONTA = "that he came ... " ELHLUQOTA = "that he DID come ... "
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>



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