[b-greek] Re: Perfect Subjunctive

From: Robert H. Matlack, Jr. (rmatlack@juno.com)
Date: Wed Nov 01 2000 - 16:05:15 EST


Dennis, Carlton,

Thanks so much for the information. The only perfect subjunctive that is
not from OIDA that I have found is ENESCHTAI from ENECW in 3 Maccabees
6:10 so it does seem they are rare.

I have a couple of other questions. If one wanted to say in Greek "Mom,
let us go to the mall", an exhortation, one would use the aorist
subjunctive (right?), but if one wanted to say "Mom, let us go to the
mall", a request, what would one use? The imperative?

Now for an English question, the difference between the two statements
above (Mom, let us go to the mall) is clear in spoken English. Is there
any way to distinguish them in written text other than context? Are both
correct in English?

Rob Matlack
620 E. 5th St., Minneapolis, KS 67467
RMatlack@juno.com Hm: 785-392-2865 Church: 785-392-2089
"...that we may present every man mature in Christ Jesus."


On Tue, 31 Oct 2000 08:38:20 -0800 "Dennis Hukel" <hukel@bhiinc.com>
writes:
> Dear Rob,
>
> It would take me another day before I could come up with any NT
> examples of a Perfect Subjunctive, but there certainly
> was such an animal, at least in the Active voice. The middle-passive
> voice used periphrastic constructions only, in
> Classical and Koine. Although OIDA is usually translated as a simple
> present, it is indeed a Perfect of EIDON. An
> English translation with the Perfect subjunctive of OIDA would be:
> "I may have perceived his intent."
>
> The subjunctive does not exist in the Future or Future Pefect tenses
> for a very good reason. In very early Greek or
> Late Indo-European there came a need to express future action as a
> reality, rather than just a possibility. This new
> form was morphologically derived from the Aorist Subjunctive, but
> the Future tense has an aspectual nuance of
> "expecting something as a certainty" which is incompatable with the
> grammatical meanings of the subjunctive, optative,
> and imperative. There is a note of confusion though, as a few
> Classical works used a "Future Optative"; this is not
> what it seems though, because it was only used in indirect discourse
> to express the Future tense was used in the
> original quote.
>
> Your children are not the only ones to notice the Aorist Subjunctive
> (if looked at strictly from a morphological
> standpoint) could have been a Future Subjunctive. The analysis of
> Greek morphology which stands behind the Concordant
> Version came to that same conclusion some 90 years ago!
>
> Dennis Hukel
> hukel@bhiinc.com
>
>
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