From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 03 1997 - 06:33:39 EST
At 10:49 PM -0600 4/2/97, Wes Williams wrote:
>
>I won't speak for myself, but I would like to volunteer Prof. Kenneth
>McKay (I regard him loosely in my mind as "Mr. Aspect") as a Greek Gnome
>along with the the other Scholar-Gnomes on the list.
>
>He writes in "A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek," p.47
>under the subheading "Timeless (Gnomic) Aorist:"
>The aorist tense is often used to express general truth in contexts with
>no particular time reference. The present is the tense most commonly
>found in timeless statements, as habitual activity is an imperfective
>realization, but when the completeness of an action is to be stressed in
>such a context the aorist is used. This aoristic completeness may in
>some contexts imply suddenness or decisive action, in others
>inevitability, but being a deviation from the norm in such contexts it
>always involves a degree of emphasis. A clause containing AN (including
>EAN, hOTAN, etc.) with a subjunctive depending on an aorist indicative
>is usually a clear indication that the context is timeless: see 20.3.1,
>20.6.3, 21.3.1. The timeless aorist is often called *gnomic* because it
>has been most readily recognized in proverbial sayings and maxims
>(GNWMAI), but is not confined to them. Some examples are:
>Jn 15:6 EAN MH TIS MENH EN EMOI, EBLHQH hWS TO KLHMA KAI EXHRANQH, if
>anyone does not remain in me he is cast out like a branch and withers
>(the present tenses which follow describe the less urgent tidying up
>process);
>Jas 1:11 ANETEILEN GAR hO hHLIOS SUN TWi KAUSWNI KAI EXHRANEN TON
>KORTON, once the sun rises with its scorching heat it withers the grass;
>
>Mt 5:28 PAS hO BLEPWN (<-- hOS AN BLEPH) GUNAIKA PROS TO EPIQUMHSAI
>AUTHN HDH EMOIKEUSEN AUTHN EN TH KARDIA AUTOU everyone who looks at a
>woman to the point of desiring her in his heart (has already committed
>... would more naturally represent the perfect in sich a context);
>1Co 7:28 EAN DE GAMHSHS, OUK hHMARTES, but if you do marry you do not
>commit a sin (that is not a sinful act)
>From one Greek gnome to others, my special thanks to Wes Williams and Prof.
Kenneth McKay for a most illuminating comment on and illustration of the
"timeless aorist" particularly as it appears to general conditions.
Frankly, I feel that I'm beginning to emerge from out of the fog that I
entered as a result of some of the recent discussion of aspect, the most
confusing part of which to me has been a kind of inconsistent terminology
and comparisons between other languages and Greek which have seemed to me
to cloud the picture of Greek usage more than to clarify it.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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