From: Paul F. Evans (evans@wilmington.net)
Date: Fri Mar 05 1999 - 08:29:12 EST
Randall,
I am neither and aspect geek nor a linguist, so my opinion is doomed from
the start. But is seems to me that you are right. Surely the origin of
language by its very nature depends on convention and idiom, and Greek is no
exception I am sure. Rules are just observations for what I am calling
broadly idiomatic usage of words. We can hold forth on complicated formulas
all we like but the best we can do is observe usage and draw tentative
conclusions based upon what we know about other instances of that usage. To
pretend we can assess the inner workings of the mind of the author is
unwarranted, and to second guess the meaning of the supposed reason for his
choice of verbs (my understanding of aspect) is removing the process too far
from the syntax we are looking at.
Paul & Loala Evans
Wilmington First Pentecostal Holiness Church
E-mail: evans@wilmington.net
loala@wilmington.net
Web-page: http://wilmingtonfirst.churches.wilmington.org/
-----Original Message-----
From: yochanan bitan <ButhFam@compuserve.com>
To: Biblical Greek <b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Cc: b-greek <b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Friday, March 05, 1999 7:30 AM
Subject: Re: Are Greek Verbs Not Marked Temporally Even In Indicative
Clauses?
>
>(edward quoted carl:)
>"...aorist participles in narrative sequence . . . do tend generally to
>indicate action prior to the main narrative verb, and that this is probably
>
>a matter of conventional idiomatic usage rather than of anything built-in
>in either the aorist itself or in the aorist participle."
>
>i'm comfortable with that assessment. it may reveal more than it intended.
>
>conventional idiomatic usage is what we want.
>otherwise, one would be in danger of grammatical etymologizing, and the
>greek profession wouldn't want that.
>
>if the rule works
>> "more often than it should!"
>then maybe it was acquiring contextual meanings and constraints above and
>beyond its aspectual pedigree/etymology?
>
>errwsQe
>randall buth
>
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