From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon May 04 1998 - 15:53:24 EDT
At 1:25 PM -0500 5/4/98, dalmatia@eburg.com wrote:
>Edgar Foster wrote:
>
>I know that I am asking a lot by insisting on a translational
>difference between 'I run.' and 'I am running.'
>This insistence will restore the aorist to English usage ~ No small
>matter !!!! ~ At least in GNT translation.
>I hope and pray that it does.
Well, I'd say that what you're doing is trying to impose the categories of
the Greek verb on the English verb, and I don't think that's legitimate. In
English, we may speak of progressive, emphatic, and simple forms of the
present tense: "I am running, I do run, I run"--but all are the present
tense. In classical Attic or Koine Greek "I run" is a legitimate
translation ONLY for a non-indicative AORIST form such as DRAMW. It is NOT
a legitimate translation for EDRAMON.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:42 EDT