Here are your examples, in which you point out that the aorist refers to an
action which continues. I notice the phrase "until this day" in each of the
examples, which is either EWS THS SHMERON hHMERAS or EWS THS SHMERON TAUTHS
in each case. As you probably recall, a few days ago I posted 7 examples of
NUN+Aorist Verb, which I argued has a force not unlike the perfect, and your
examples all show a specific time phrase in interaction with the aorist.
I tried to find some NT examples with Aorist Verb + EWS, and found two, both
in Matthew:
Matt 24:29 KAI OUK EGNWSAN EWS HLQEN hO KATAKLUSMOS
Matt 10:11 KAKEI MEINATE EWS AN EXELQHTE
The first example doesn't really illustrate your point. The second example,
Matt 10:11, is a wonderfully strange construction, and I'm going to have to
think about it for a while and see what the grammars have to say about it.
I looked with a Gramcord search, and didn't find other examples. Is it
significant that both uses are in Matthew?
>Josh 6:25 says that Rahab `has lived (aorist, KATWiKISEN) in
>Israel until this day`. She continued to live there.
"KATWiKHSEN EN TWi ISRAHL EWS THS SHMERON hHMERAS"
Now remove the phrase EWS THS SHMERON hHMERAS, and what do you have?
>Judg 1:21 says that the Jebusite `has lived (aorist,
>KATWiKISEN) (..) in Jerusalem until this day`. They
>continued to live there.
KATWiKHSEN ... EWS THS SHMERON TAUTHS
>1 Sam 27:6 says that Siklag has been in the possession (
>pass. aor, EGENHQH) of the king of Judea until this day.
>This continued.
DIA TOUTO EGENHQH SEKELAK TWi BASILEI THS IOUDAIAS EWS THS hHMERAS TAUTHS
>Deut 2:22 says that the children of Esau `has lived (pass
>aor, KATWiKISQHSAN)` in Seir `until this day`. They
>continued to live there.
KAI KATWiKISQHSAN ANT AUTWON EWS THS hHMERAS TAUTHS
>2 Sam 4:3 says hat the Berothites `has been sojourners
>(imperfect+ pres part, HSAN PAROIKOUNTES) there until this
>day.` They continued to live there
>Josh 4:9 says that the twelve stones `has been there
>(present, EISIN) until this day.`They continued to be there.
I'm going to save myself time by ignoring those examples which do not
contain the aorist.
>As I see it, the real test of our understanding of the Greek
>aspect...
I agree with Fanning's statement, but the *real* test, of course, is whether
we can come up with simple explanation which accounts for the range of
meanings found in our data. And the good news for linguists is that people
like Smyth and Robertson have already done an amazingly good job of
providing descriptive data from which we can reason. If a theory can account
for all the examples cite in the discussion of tense in these two grammars,
then it is already based on a massive amount of data.
>...is our reaction to Fannings words (2.2.4 and similar
>words 2.1.5): "the aorist is a viewpoint aspect in that it
>reflects the speaker`s or writer`s focus or PERSPECTIVE on
>the occurrence and not the actional character of the
>occurrence itself (duration-momentariness, process-event,
>etc.)". Porter agrees with this but McKay is ambiguous (and
>confusing).
Again, I agree with you here.
>The basic grammatical categories in Greek neither have
>English counterparts. In one of the categories - the
>imperfective one - we find actions which are conative (try
>to), inceptive (begin to), progressive (continue to),
>durative (are doing), customary (use to), frequentative
>(`are doing`), futuristic (cf Fanning 221) and resultative
>(Fanning`s `perfective`, 239) and states...
Someday, when I have time, I'll tell you how Mari analyzes Fanning's
categories. She gives them very precise meanings...
Jonathan
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Jonathan Robie
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