From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun May 11 1997 - 09:26:12 EDT
At 2:35 AM -0400 5/11/97, John M. Moe wrote:
>At. 1John 2:19 MEMENHKEISAN is an indicative describing a situation
>which the context plainly shows to be contrary to fact. I would expect a
>subjunctive form here. What am I missing?
What you are missing is the fact that contrary-to-fact conditions take an
indicative in Greek, normally an imperfect (present counterfactual) or an
aorist (past counterfactual)--but one find, as in this instance, a
PLUPERFECT indicative in place of the aorist
--and by the way, what do the geeks say about the ABSENCE OF AN AUGMENT on
this particular pluperfect INDICATIVE? Omission of the augument on a
pluperfect indicative is something we have noticed is not uncommon,
although it is also not the rule. Is it conceivable that the fact this is
in a counterfactual condition that this pluperfect indicative happens not
to be augmented? I don't know that there's any way whatsoever to answer
this question, but it's one that occurred to me anyhow.
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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