From: Stephen Ferguson (stphnfer01@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Nov 27 2001 - 14:45:34 EST
<x-flowed>
>Hi Stephen:
>
>The idea that MH with the present imperative NECESSARILY indicates a
>command to STOP doing something rather than AVOID doing it is one of
>those longstanding myths that still plagues grammars and commentaries.
>This construction MAY indicate a command to stop an action, but only if
>the contextual conditions are right. But this is an affected meaning or
>specific usage, and to insist that this is the essential idea is not
>correct. The basic force of the present in commands/prohibitions is that
>it views the action internally, as open-ended. The idea in James 4.11
>seems to be to HABITUALLY refrain from speaking evil against one
>another, as the general tone of the remainder of the sentence indicates.
Thank you to those who replied, I appreciate the clarification.
Stephen Ferguson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
</x-flowed>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:12 EDT