From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 25 2002 - 08:56:45 EST
At 8:18 AM -0500 2/25/02, Rbsads@aol.com wrote:
>Now that Carl has gently guided me to recognition of the pluperfect form, I
>see it everywhere.
>
>12.46-47 ETI AUTOU LALOUNTOS TOIS OCLOIS IDOU hH MHTHR KAI hOI ADELFOI AUTOU
>hEISTHKEISAN EXW ZHTOUNTES AUTW LALHSAI. (47) EIPEN DE TIS AUTW, IDOU hH
>MHTHR SOU KAI hOI ADELFOI SOU EXW hESTHKASIN ZHTOUNTES SOI LALHSAI.
>
>Does the use of the pluperfect in Mt 12.46 mean that Jesus' mother and
>brothers had stood outside, but are not now standing outside? The different
>translations do not seem to render any significance to the tense.
>
>If the pluperfect means that they are no longer outside, then does the use of
>the perfect in verse 47 imply that that verse has an earlier time reference?
No; one thing important to understand about perfect and pluperfect is that
they are correlative with present and imperfect: they indicate a condition
or status that holds currently (present perfect) or that was holding at
some time previously (pluperfect). Moreover there are a few verbs that
require a perfect tense to indicate present status, and one of these is
hISTHMI/hISTAMAI. The present tense hISTAMAI means "I am in the process of
rising to a standing position" or else "I am coming to a standstill from a
moving position." In order to say "I am standing," one must in Greek use
the present perfect, hESTHKA (lit. "I have reached a standing position");
to put that into the past and say "I was standing," one must in Greek use
the pluperfect hEISTHKH or hEISTHKEIN (lit., "I had reached a standing
position--and was remaining in it").
Another verb operating the same was is OIDA: although technically a perfect
tense, this has the force of a present: "I know" = "I have a fully-formed
mental vision") and to say "I knew" using this verb-stem, one must
write/say HiDEIN.
So one must be aware of the distinctive, almost idiomatic usage of these
two verbs, OIDA and hISTAMAI: they are very common verbs (and there are
many compounds of hISTAMAI as well) and their perfect and pluperfect forms
refer to states/conditions in the present or the past respectively rather
than to completed actions as such. So above: hEISTHKEISAN is equivalent to
imperfect "were standing" and hESTHKASIN is equivalent to a present, "are
standing."
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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