[b-greek] Re: Aorist never codes an open situation? - to Kimmo

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 18 2000 - 06:25:12 EST


At 3:31 AM +0000 12/18/00, Mark Wilson wrote:
>Moon:
>
>You said:
>
>-----
>>I understand your claim. "to love" itself is unbound like uncountable
>>nouns. But uncountable nouns can be made countable as in "two coffees,
>>please". Similarly verbs that are lexically open-ended can be made bound
>>by the aorist coding. It seems to be a nice and systmetic explanation of
>>aorist aspect.
>------
>
>Since this is to Kimmo, I thought I would ask some Verbal Aspect questions.
>
>Correct my thinking Kimmo:
>
>Moon has, to some extent, hit on the weakness of Porter's Verbal Aspect
>system, namely, LEXICAL ASPECT. The Aorist FORM encodes GRAMMATICAL ASPECT,
>but not LEXICAL ASPECT. Hence, you have a more complex issue here than just
>the Aorist aspect (Perfective Aspect).
>
>This may also be relevant: Not only does John say that God "loved" but he
>also associates (joins) this act with the Aorist transitive verb EDWKEN (he
>gave). Since EDWKEN takes a Direct Object here, you have a telic aspect
>(i.e., there must be a specific time in which this act reaches a termination
>point) as well.
>
>It seems to me that the telic aspect of EDWKEN would naturally join with an
>Aorist form verb (perfective aspect). Since John has in mind some act in
>which God "gave," he would naturally (default ??) use a perfective aspect
>with AGAPAW.
>
>This may be a chicken and egg question, but which comes first here: Does
>John use the Aorist of AGAPAW "because" he plans on using the Aorist EDWKEN?
>
>My questions...

I'm not sure I belong in this discussion, but I think the answer to this is
that the statement is presented from the perspective of one looking
backward at a pivotal event as a whole: an act of love encompassed in an
act of giving. While theoretically the author might have written, hOUTWS
HGAPA hO QEOS TON KOSMON hWSTE TON hUION TON MONOGENH EDIDOU, hINA ... but
what would that mean: that God (kept on giving/started to give/repeatedly
gave/started giving) his only son? It seems to me that although we can talk
about "the gift that keeps on giving," even when we do so we are talking
about repeated acts of giving rather than an uninterrupted continuous
giving--I really don't know if that's conceivable. But in any case (I was
about to say, "in any event"!) it seems to me that the formulation
envisions a single historical act of God that is in the past and is
complete, however much its consequences may be enduring and even
endless--and that's quite enough to account for the aorists.
--

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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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