Re: Perfect for specific event time

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 18 1998 - 09:25:47 EST


At 8:29 PM -0600 1/17/98, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>Micheal Palmer was telling me about an article that says that the English
>perfect may not have specific event time reference. Consider the following:
>
> Q. Have you eaten?
> A. Yes, I ate at six today.*
>
> Q. Have you eaten?
> A. Yes, I have eaten at six today.*
>
>This second answer is not really grammatical. The article claims that the
>reason it seems strange is that the English perfect is used for undisclosed
>event time, and this is what distinguishes it from the past.

That second answer is one that I have heard especially from speakers of
English as a second language who still think in German (or French ...) and
for whom "Heute habe ich um sechs Uhr gegessen" or "J'ai mangŽ aujourd'hui
ˆ six heures" are perfectly normal formulations in a Past Indefinite
corresponding to some extent to the ancient Greek aorist. I don't really
think that the English perfect is ever used as in that second answer by
ordinary native speakers of English (but I may just not have ever heard it).

>That got me to wondering about the Greek perfect. The "undisclosed event
>time" discription is consistent with the idea that the perfect focuses on
>the state resulting from an event, not on the event itself - after all, the
>time of the event can't even be stated, at least, not with the English
>perfect.
>
>Is this also true for the Greek perfect? Can I say something like THi
>TRITHi hHMERA HGGIKEN hH BASILEIA TWN OURANWN ? ("on the third day, the
>kingdom of the heavens has drawn near") Can anybody think of a case where
>the perfect is used with specific time reference?

I'd be very surprised to see an ancient Greek perfect tense used with that
distinct and specific a time reference. The perfect is, properly speaking,
a present tense, and you might very well see it used with a NUN or an ARTI
or some such adverb pointing to the present time. Of course there are
perfects like OIDA and KEKTHMAI and hESTHKA that are readily used as if
they were present tense forms, but even to refer to a specific point in the
past, it seems to me you'd have to go to a pluperfect form, such as SHMERON
THi TRITHi hWRAi hESTHKH PROS THN GEFURAN, "I was standing near the bridge
at 9 a.m. today."

On the other hand, it's been said that the perfect tense is becoming
increasingly obsolete in Hellenistic or Koine Greek because it is
increasingly seen to have no function that is very clearly distinct from
the aorist. So it may very well be that somewhere in the NT or in
contemporary Greek secular usage one may find examples of a perfect tense
used like an aorist to refer to a specific moment in past time.

One passage that suddenly occurs to me is Luke 4:21 SHMERON PEPLHRWTAI hH
GRAFH hAUTH EN TOIS WSIN hUMWN. But this is different, I think: this is a
real stative stressing the present status of scripture's fulfilment and the
SHMERON is not a reference to a moment earlier today but to the "now" of
the audience--or at least, that's what I think.

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/



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