Re: English perfect, Greek perfect
dalmatia@eburg.com
Thu, 04 Jun 1998 22:09:37 -0700
Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
> At 09:36 AM 6/4/98 -0700, dalmatia@eburg.com wrote:
>
> >And the more I think about this, the more I wonder about the
> >morphological implications of the Greek perfect. Does it indeed imply
> >'possession' through its form, as in the English 'has' risen, and is
> >it thereby really a present stative 'tense'? How DOES that morphology
> >work anyhows???
>
> I don't think that has in the phrase "has gone" means the same thing as the
> same word in the phrase "has eggs". There's no possession involved in "has
> gone". In English, there's at least the accident of the word "has", which
> is used for both possession and the perfect, but I see no similar accident
> in the Greek language.
Well, the simple idea in the English is that if someone 'possesses'
'gone', he is no longer there, hence the use of 'has' 'gone' for the
perfect, just as if he 'has' eggs for breakfast!!
George Blaisdell