The confusion here is probably caused by several different levels of marking
or just different definitions of marking. When I talk about marking I usually
mean semantic marking. Note also that I use the word semantic in it's more
traditional sense, not in the way the Systemic Functional people do.
I will illustrate with DE in Luke/Acts. When I started studying Luke, several
years ago, I was convinced that KAI was the conjunction of continuation and DE
was the adversative conjunction. But in Luke I encountered DE used over and
over again as a conjunction of continuation. I realized after awhile that this
was normal usage of DE and stopped thinking "adversative" every time I saw it.
Therefore, speaking in terms of semantic marking, DE functioning as a
continuative conjunction in Luke/Acts is semantically unmarked. If DE is
encountered where the context demands an adversative function it is the marked
use of DE (in Luke/Acts). All of this might change in John's Gospel or
elsewhere.
Now when it comes to the aorist, I would say that when the aorist is used as
the narrative tense it is probably semantically unmarked. But there are other
ways that the aorist is used and to the extent that these more unusually uses
of the aorist call attention to themselves and add meaning the to the context
they should be considered semantically marked.
I can predict that explanation of marking will probably drive some folks up
the wall. I got this idea reading Silva but I am not claiming that Silva would
explain it in the same manner.
It is also quite possible that I am just hopelessly confused. This is often
the case.
-- Clayton Stirling Bartholomew Three Tree Point P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062PostScript
If Harvey Cox had written an introduction to NT Greek, I would not recommend it.