RE: English perfect, Greek perfect

Stevens, Charles C (Charles.Stevens@unisys.com)
Thu, 4 Jun 1998 13:32:08 -0500

On 04 June 1998 at 10:51AM, Jonathan Robie suggests:

<<The following sentences do not seem grammatical to me:

> ** 7. He has arisen and is dead.
> ?? 8. He has arisen but is dead.
> ** 9. Your sins have been forgiven and you are a slave to sin.
> ?? 10. Your sins have been forgiven but you are a slave to sin.
>
> Actually, maybe 8 and 10 are heavily paradoxical, rather than strictly
> ungrammatical. >>
>
A nit to some; rather a hot-button for me:

Maybe we're using different definitions of "grammatical", but I believe
these all to be legitimate *grammatical* sentences in English;
"semantically meaningful", "rhetorically consistent" and "grammatical"
are different issues.

-Chuck Stevens [SMTP: Charles.Stevens@unisys.com]