Verbal Aspect, the Indicative Mood, and Narrative: Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament (Studies in Biblical Greek) 9781433100239, 9781433100031, 9781453905869, 1433100231

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Constantine R. Campbell

Verbal Aspect, the Indicative Mood, and Narrative Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament

Verbal Aspect, the Indicative Mood, and Narrative

Studies in Biblical Greek

D. A. Carson

General Editor Vol. 13

PETER LANG

New York ! Washington, D.C./Baltimore ! Bern Frankfurt am Main ! Berlin ! Brussels ! Vienna ! Oxford

Constantine R. Campbell

Verbal Aspect, the Indicative Mood, and Narrative Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament

PETER LANG

New York ! Washington, D.C./Baltimore ! Bern Frankfurt am Main ! Berlin ! Brussels ! Vienna ! Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Campbell, Constantine R. Verbal aspect, the indicative mood, and narrative: soundings in the Greek of the New Testament / Constantine R. Campbell. p. cm. — (Studies in biblical Greek; v. 13) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Bible. N.T.—Language, style. 2. Greek language, Biblical—Grammar. 3. Bible. N.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. II. Series. BS2325.C36 225.4’8—dc22 2007011090 ISBN 978-1-4331-0023-9 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4331-0003-1 (paperback) ISBN 978­1­4539­0586­9 (eBook) ISSN 0897-7828 (Print edition)

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek. Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources.

© 2007 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. Printed in Germany

For Bronwyn

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures.................................................................................................. xi Series Editor Preface..................................................................................... xiii Author’s Preface ............................................................................................ xv List of Abbreviations.................................................................................... xvii Introduction .......................................................................... 1 1. The problem of verbal aspect................................................................1 2. Where are we?.......................................................................................2 3. Discourse analysis and Greek narrative ................................................3 4. The search for an aspectual model of the Greek verbal system ............5 5. Implications...........................................................................................5 Chapter One: Methodological Issues........................................ 7 1. Introduction ..........................................................................................7 2. Terminology..........................................................................................8 3. Linguistic assumptions ........................................................................16 4. Pragmatics and semantics ...................................................................24 5. Determining aspect .............................................................................28 6. Limitation of sources ...........................................................................30 7. Conclusion ..........................................................................................33 Chapter Two: The Present Tense-form .................................. 35 1. Introduction ........................................................................................35 2. Aspectual value....................................................................................35 3. Present usage and function..................................................................37 4. Remoteness and proximity..................................................................48

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE 5. The historical present..........................................................................57 6. Conclusion ..........................................................................................76

Chapter Three: The Imperfect Tense-form............................. 77 1. Introduction ........................................................................................77 2. Aspectual value....................................................................................77 3. Imperfect usage and function..............................................................79 4. Imperfectivity and remoteness ...........................................................84 5. Conclusion ........................................................................................101 Chapter Four: The Aorist Tense-form ...................................103 1. Introduction ......................................................................................103 2. Perfective aspect ................................................................................103 3. Aorist usage and function..................................................................108 4. Perfectivity and remoteness...............................................................115 5. Conclusion ........................................................................................125 Chapter Five: The Future Tense-form ...................................127 1. Introduction ......................................................................................127 2. Future usage and function.................................................................127 3. Aspectual value..................................................................................134 4. Future temporal reference.................................................................151 5. Discourse analysis..............................................................................158 6. Conclusion ........................................................................................159 Chapter Six: The Perfect Tense-form ....................................161 1. Introduction ......................................................................................161 2. Traditional approaches .....................................................................162 3. Stative aspect.....................................................................................166 4. Perfect usage and function ................................................................175 5. Aspectual value..................................................................................184 6. Heightened proximity .......................................................................195 7. Conclusion ........................................................................................210 Chapter Seven: The Pluperfect Tense-form ...........................213 1. Introduction ......................................................................................213 2. Pluperfect usage and function ...........................................................213 3. Aspectual value..................................................................................224

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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4. Heightened remoteness .....................................................................229 5. Planes of discourse.............................................................................233 6. Conclusion ........................................................................................237 Conclusions and Implications ..............................................239 1. Introduction ......................................................................................239 2. Discourse analysis and recursive methodology .................................239 3. Discourse analysis and Greek narrative ............................................241 4. An aspectual model of the Greek verbal system................................241 5. Narrative structure and the indicative mood ....................................244 6. Exegetical implications......................................................................247 7. Conclusion ........................................................................................247 Bibliography ................................................................................................249 Author Index ...............................................................................................269 Reference Index...........................................................................................275 Subject Index ...............................................................................................281

FIGURES

Figure 1.1: Proximate imperfectivity............................................................. 51 Figure 1.2: Remote imperfectivity................................................................. 51 Figure 1.3: Proximate imperfectivity and heightened transition ................... 53 Figure 2: Historical presents in John ............................................................. 66 Figure 3: Historical presents in Mark............................................................ 69 Figure 4: Remote imperfectivity.................................................................... 85 Figure 5.1: Remote imperfectivity............................................................... 197 Figure 5.2: Proximate imperfectivity........................................................... 198 Figure 5.3: Imperfectivity and heightened proximity.................................. 198 Figure 6: Discourse strands and tense-form patterns .................................. 241 Figure 7: Models of the Greek Verbal System (Indicative Mood)............... 242

SERIES EDITOR PREFACE

Studies in Biblical Greek is an occasional series of monographs designed to promote and publish the latest research into the Greek of both Testaments. The Series does not assume that biblical Greek is a distinct dialect within the larger world of Koine: on the contrary, the assumption is that biblical Greek is part and parcel of the Hellenistic Greek that dominated the Mediterranean world from about 300 B.C. to A.D. 200. If the series focuses on the corpora of the Old and New Testaments, it is because these writings generate major interest around the world, not only for religious but also for historical and academic reasons. Research into the broader evidence of the period, including epigraphical and inscriptional materials as well as literary works, is welcome in the Series, provided the results are cast in terms of their bearing on biblical Greek. In the same way, the Series is devoted to fresh philological, syntactical and linguistic study of the Greek of the biblical books, with the subsidiary aim of displaying the contribution of such study to accurate exegesis. The last two or three decades have witnessed an impressive growth in the application of linguistic theory to the study of Hellenistic Greek. Nowhere has this work been more intense than in debates over the relevance of aspect theory to our understanding of the Greek verbal system. Dr Campbell’s book carefully weighs in on some of these debates, focusing on the narrative literature of the Gospels (primarily the Synoptic Gospels) and on several extra-biblical narrative sources. One of the great strengths of his research is the limpid clarity of his prose. It is always a bit disconcerting to discover how much work on aspect theory has been done, and how little of it has crossed into the world of New Testament scholarship. Because of its clarity and excellent illustrations, Campbell’s volume has the potential for mediating between the two fields. Scarcely less important is the fact that Campbell puts

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forth some fresh suggestions as to how to understand the perfect and pluperfect. On any theory of the Greek verbthe time-based system of the Rationalist period, the more recent variations of Aktionsart theory, and now aspect theorythe perfect tense has proven notoriously difficult to handle. Campbell provides fresh food for thoughtcertainly not the last word, but an intriguing suggestion that may well point the way ahead. D. A. Carson Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

My interest in Greek verbal aspect began while I was a student at Moore Theological College. As part of the Greek program, verbal aspect was introduced as a topic of scholarly debate that was yet to settle. The positions of Porter, Fanning, and Olsen were presented, and the major distinctions between their positions were defined and discussed. As students, we struggled with the complexity of the debate and how to apply the insights that verbal aspect offered to exegesis of Greek text. Suffice to say, my interest was sparked. I chose to explore verbal aspect for my honours thesis, which in turn led to doctoral research. I will always be grateful that faculty members at Moore were so willing to engage with cutting edge research, even when it was notoriously difficult and as yet unresolved. This book is a lightly revised version of my doctoral thesis, which was submitted to Macquarie University in July 2006. I am grateful to Professor D. A. Carson, Dr Moisés Silva, and Dr Anssi Voitila, who examined the thesis, for their suggestions that have improved the work. Professor Carson was also kind enough to invite me to publish the thesis in this series. I am indebted to Dr Trevor Evans for his invaluable contribution to this book as my doctoral supervisor. His superb scholarship, critical thinking, open-mindedness, and genuine support were matched only by his many kindnesses to me. For their generous encouragement, suggestions and comments, I wish to thank Professor Alanna Nobbs and Dr Peter O’Brien. A special note of thanks goes to Dr Peter Bolt for sending me down this path in the first place, and for his encouragement at every step. Now that I have returned to Moore College, it is a privilege to teach alongside Dr Richard Gibson, my first teacher of Greek, whose commitment to his students is an inspiration.

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I would like to thank my brothers and sisters at Crossroads Christian Church, Canberra, and Moore Theological College, Sydney, for graciously allowing me time to pursue this study, and for their encouragement and stimulation. My parents, John and Marlene Campbell, have been supportive of me through many fads and interests throughout my life—as diverse as jazz and verbal aspect—and I am grateful for their continued encouragement. Thanks also go to my beautiful children, Jasmine, Xanthe, and Lukas—two of whom were born during the course of my research—for constantly reminding me that there is a lot more to life than the Greek verb. This book is dedicated to my lovely wife Bronwyn, without whose patience, generosity, and sacrificial love, I would not have got past page one.

Soli Deo Gloria

ABBREVIATIONS

Bache, ‘Aspect’

Carl Bache, ‘Aspect and Aktionsart: Towards a Semantic Distinction’, Journal of Linguistics 18 (1982), 57–72

BBL

Tense, Aspect and Action: Empirical and Theoretical Contributions to Language Typology (ed. Carl Bache, Hans Basbøll, and Carl-Erik Lindberg; Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 12; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994)

BDF

F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and Robert A. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961)

Burton, Syntax

Ernest de Witt Burton, Syntax of the Mood and Tenses in New Testament Greek (3rd ed.; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1900; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1976)

Crystal, Linguistics

David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (5th ed.; Oxford; Blackwell Publishing, 2003)

Curtius, Greek Verb

Georg Curtius, The Greek Verb: Its Structure and Development (trans. Augustus S. Wilkins and

xviii

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE Edwin B. England; London: John Murray, 1880)

Decker, Temporal Deixis

Rodney J. Decker, Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect (Studies in Biblical Greek 10; New York: Peter Lang, 2001)

Evans, Verbal Syntax

T. V. Evans, Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch: Natural Greek Usage and Hebrew Interference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

Fanning, ‘Approaches’

Buist M. Fanning, ‘Approaches to Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek: Issues in Definition and Method’, in Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research (ed. Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson; JSNTS 80; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993)

Fanning, Verbal Aspect

Buist M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 1990)

Hopper, ‘Foregrounding’

Paul J. Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse’, in Discourse and Syntax (ed. Talmy Givón; Syntax and Semantics 12; New York: Academic Press, 1979), 213–41

JSNTS

Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

Kiparsky, ‘Tense’

Paul Kiparsky, ‘Tense and Mood in IndoEuropean Syntax’, Foundations of Language 4 (1968), 30–57

ABBREVIATIONS

xix

Lloyd, Anatomy

Albert L. Lloyd, Anatomy of the Verb (Studies in Language Companion Series 4; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1979)

LSJ

H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon (9th ed.; rev. Sir H. S. Jones, with the assistance of R. McKenzie; Oxford: Clarendon, 1940)

McKay, ‘Aspectual Usage’

K. L. McKay, ‘Aspectual Usage in Timeless Contexts in Ancient Greek’, in In the Footsteps of Raphael Kuhner (ed. A. Rijksbaron, H. A. Mulder, and G. C. Wakker; Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988), 193–208

McKay, ‘NT Greek’

K. L. McKay, ‘On the Perfect and Other Aspects in New Testament Greek’, Novum Testamentum 23/4 (1981), 289–329.

McKay, ‘Perfect Use’

K. L. McKay, ‘The Use of the Ancient Greek Perfect Down to the Second Century A.D.’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 12 (1965), 1–21

McKay, Syntax

K. L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach (Studies in Biblical Greek 5; New York: Peter Lang, 1994)

O’Brien, ‘Future’

Mark B. O’Brien, ‘Verbal Aspect in the Future Tense of the Greek New Testament’ (Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1997)

Olsen, Aspect

Mari Broman Olsen, A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics; New York: Garland Publishing, 1997)

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

Porter, ‘Defence’

Stanley E. Porter, ‘In Defence of Verbal Aspect’, in Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research (ed. Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson; Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 80; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 26–45

Porter, Discourse Analysis

Discourse Analysis and Other Topics in Biblical Greek (ed. Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson; Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 113; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995)

Porter, Idioms

Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; Biblical Languages: Greek 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994)

Porter, Verbal Aspect

Stanley E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament with Reference to Tense and Mood (Studies in Biblical Greek 1; New York: Peter Lang, 1989)

Rijksbaron, ‘Imperfect’

‘The Discourse Function of the Imperfect’, in In the Footsteps of Raphael Kuhner (ed. A. Rijksbaron, H. A. Mulder, and G. C. Wakker; Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988), 237–54

Robertson, Grammar

A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 1914)

RR, ‘Discourse’

Jeffrey T. Reed and Ruth A. Reese, ‘Verbal Aspect, Discourse Prominence, and the Letter of Jude’, Filologia Neotestamentaria 18/9 (1996), 181–99

ABBREVIATIONS

xxi

Ruipérez, Aspectos

Martín S. Ruipérez, Estructura del sistema de aspectos y tiempos del verbo griego antiguo: Análisis funcional sincrónico (Theses et Studia Philologica Salmanticensia 7; Salamanca: Colegio Trilingüe de la Universidad, 1954)

Sauge, Parfait

André Sauge, Les degrés du verbe: sens et formation du parfait en grec ancien (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000)

SS, ‘Perfect’

C. M. J. Sicking and P. Stork, ‘The Synthetic Perfect in Classical Greek’, in Two Studies in the Semantics of the Verb in Classical Greek (Mnemosyne Supplement 160; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 119–298

TLBW

Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography: Essays in Honor of Frederick W. Danker (ed. Bernard A. Taylor, John A. L. Lee, Peter R. Burton, and Richard E. Whitaker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004)

Voelz, ‘Proposal’

J. W. Voelz, ‘Present and Aorist Verbal Aspect: A New Proposal’, Neotestamentica 27 (1993), 153–64

Wallace, Grammar

Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996)

INTRODUCTION

1. The problem of verbal aspect Verbal aspect refers to the manner in which verbs are used to view an action or state. An author/speaker will portray an event either from the inside, as though it is seen as unfolding, or from the outside, as though it is seen as a whole. Discussion concerning verbal aspect in Ancient Greek, and in particular Koine Greek, has caused a good degree of unrest among those who seek to read, understand, and teach this ancient language. Part of this unrest stems from the way in which it is perceived that verbal aspect threatens to undermine traditional analyses of Greek. So much has been built on these analyses that to undermine them could (it is imagined) have incalculable consequences for the status and conclusions of research that has been accepted for generations. As Guthrie aptly comments, ‘We do not care for people messing with our paradigms.’1 Part of the unrest stems from the highly complicated and technical nature of the issue and the academic discussion concerning it. The debate is considered by some to be inaccessible, out of reach, and too difficult to comprehend, let alone synthesize. As such, a natural suspicion may arise if the conclusions of scholarship are to be accepted at face value simply because one is barred from the debate. Part of the unrest stems from the fact that scholarship is divided on the issue, and there is no clearly accepted position that trumps the rest. Furthermore, part of the unrest stems from the insecurity that readers of Greek face when it comes to applying verbal aspect. What difference does it make? How much should be made of the insights gained from verbal aspect? What conclusions ––––––– 1

George H. Guthrie, ‘Boats in the Bay: Reflections on the Use of Linguistics and Literary Analysis in Biblical Studies’, in Linguistics and the New Testament: Critical Junctures (ed. Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson; JSNTS 168; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 27.

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

may one legitimately draw, and how confident may we be in asserting such conclusions? It would not be possible for this book even to attempt to solve all the problems that the study of verbal aspect has raised. The burden of this book, however, is both positive and negative. Positively, it seeks to build on what we do know, and further explore its benefits for our understanding and use of Greek, with reference to the indicative mood within the genre of narrative. Negatively, it seeks to challenge and reassess some of the conclusions put by previous scholarship in the search for more effective conclusions and explanations. 2. Where are we? The modern study of verbal aspect in Ancient Greek finds its roots in the nineteenth century research of Georg Curtius, who described verbal action as Zeitart. While Curtius’ insights were largely accepted in the late nineteenth century, Brugmann substituted the term Aktionsart for Zeitart, as it was perceived that type of action was a more accurate description than type of time. The term aspect was introduced through the study of Slavonic languages, and the period 1890–1910 witnessed a flowering in Greek aspectology.2 This period marks the first era of heightened interest in what is now called verbal aspect in Greek, and a second era began roughly one hundred years later. The works of Stanley Porter and Buist Fanning in 1989/90 sparked a renewed interest in the subject, particularly within biblical studies, and began what may be described as a paradigm shift that is still taking place in our understanding of the Greek verbal system. Important contributions had been made throughout the twentieth century, such as those of Wackernagel, Chantraine, Holt, Ruipérez, and particularly McKay, to whom Fanning and Porter owed a great deal.3 However, the almost simultaneous publications of the 1989/90 volumes made significant advances through (unknowing) agreement, yet also created ambiguity in relation to several issues on which Porter and Fanning diverged and, indeed in some cases, made almost opposite conclusions. Since then, debate has continued at a scholarly level, ––––––– 2 3

For a more comprehensive sketch of this period, see Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 9–15. See Paula Lorente Fernández, L’aspect verbal en Grec Ancien: Le choix des themes verbaux chez Isocrate (Bibliothèque des cahiers de l’Institut de linguistique de Louvain 111. Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 27–38.

INTRODUCTION

3

and at other levels of interest confusion and unrest has been characteristic of many who have tried to get to grips with verbal aspect. Since the publication of Porter and Fanning’s original volumes, the significant academic contributions of Olsen, Decker, Evans, and Sicking and Stork have kept the debate progressing, and particular attention has been given to those issues that remain unresolved, such as tense and temporality, Semitic interference/influence, and the aspectual values of ‘difficult’ tenseforms such as the future and perfect indicatives. To locate this thesis in the context of previous discussion, the particular interests here are primarily twofold. The first is the function of verbal aspect in the indicative mood within Koine narrative literature, with particular interest in the Gospel narratives of the New Testament.4 The second is the explanation of how the narrative function of verbal aspect is to be explained and understood. As a corollary of this second interest, a model of the verbal network is developed in an attempt to best explain the functional phenomena. Previous models are regarded as providing varying levels of explanatory power as to the relationship between the observed phenomena and the grammatical features behind such functionality, and the conclusions reached in this thesis are based on what is regarded as presenting the greatest degree of explanatory power. This corollary has particular relevance for tense-forms that are still surrounded by academic controversy, such as the future and perfect indicatives. Indubitably, the controversial issue of time and the verb is of significance here, but it is not the primary focus. 3. Discourse analysis and Greek narrative Discourse analysis is an area of research that requires its own further investigation, and is explored here only in a limited way. Of enormous importance to this book is the recognition that Greek narrative literature consists of strands of discourse that reflect universal narratival trends. The most basic narratival trend is the distinction between narrative proper and the reporting of speech, thought, and discourse in general.5 Narrative proper ––––––– 4

5

Only synthetic forms of the indicative mood are investigated. Since periphrastic constructions involve participles, and therefore require an independent analysis of the semantics of the participle, they are excluded, as such an analysis falls outside the scope of this study. The use of the term narrative invites potential confusion. On the one hand, the term may refer broadly to narrative texts that belong to the narrative genre, such as the source texts

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

contains mainline and offline strands, which communicate skeletal storyline and supplemental information respectively. Discourse proper consists of direct discourse, indirect discourse, and (what is here called) authorial discourse. It will be demonstrated that these various strands of discourse shape narrative literature and delineate the macro-structures of narrative text, and provide the arena in which verbal aspect functions. In addition, the various aspectual values are seen to be associated with certain strands of discourse, and as such form predictable patterns of distribution. It will be demonstrated that each aspect displays a default connection to a particular strand of discourse. In order to recognize these patterns of usage of verbal aspect within strands of discourse, we will observe broad statistics of distribution that will highlight and demarcate such patterns. Generally speaking, this is the method by which the first interest of this book will be investigated; the function of verbal aspect within narrative literature is connected to the various strands of discourse inherent to any narrative text. The second interest of the book, however, is unfurled through investigation of the grammatical semantics of each indicative verb form. The basic question here is: What semantic values of the verb best account for its observed functions within narrative literature? This is a complicated question that involves its own methodological complexities. These will need to be explored later. One methodological lynchpin that will develop, however, involves a recursive process based on the discourse structures that will be observed. Through the recognition of certain undeniable patterns of aspectual usage, the aspectual value of difficult forms may be unearthed. If one particular tense-form expresses a certain aspect and is found to have an indelible connection to a certain strand of discourse, it may be supposed that this form’s aspect is suited to this strand. If, then, another verbal form displays similar characteristics of usage, the question may be raised as to whether it shares the same aspectual value. Thus a recursive method is established: we that are examined in this book. On the other hand, narrative may be used more narrowly to describe the event-based story within a narrative text, which is to be distinguished from sections that report speech, thought, and the like. In order to avoid confusion, the terms narrative literature, narrative genre, or narrative text will be employed with reference to the broader meaning. The term narrative proper will be employed with reference to the narrower meaning, since it is this feature of event-based story that most makes a narrative text a narrative.

INTRODUCTION

5

will observe aspectual patterns of usage, which will then serve as one of the bases upon which the aspectual nature of some forms will be evaluated. 4. The search for an aspectual model of the Greek verbal system Through a variety of means, including the recursive methodology mentioned above and interaction with the relevant scholarship, the corollary of our second interest will be explored. This has to do with the development of a model of the verbal network of the indicative mood in Koine Greek. A model of the verbal system seeks to account for the relationships of each tense-form to one another, to locate each tense-form within the overall network, and describes the semantic values of each form. A good model will allow space for each tense-form and will be robust enough to accommodate the variety of functions of each form. The model developed here will be compared to competing models. The key methodological principle for determining the merits of one model as compared to another is power of explanation. If a model is able to describe the verbal system in a way that better explains the usage of verbs, it is deemed to demonstrate greater power of explanation than its competitors. Ultimately, power of explanation is the best criterion for deciding the semantic qualities of the Greek verbal system. 5. Implications The potential implications of this research relate to a number of areas. If the aspectual model of the verbal system that is proposed here is accepted, some of its implications will be relatively minor, while others may constitute greater significance. In certain cases, differences to translation may ensue. When translation is affected, exegesis is also directly impacted. There may be cases in which exegesis is affected through means other than changes to translation. In a negative sense, a more accurate understanding of the verbal network should lead to the reduction of ‘verbal abuses’; spurious exegetical explanations based on ill-informed conceptions of verbal meaning may be corrected. If nothing else, a sharper grasp of the verbal system will lead to a better grasp of this ancient language and, in turn, of the texts in which it is written.

CHAPTER ONE Methodological Issues

1. Introduction The literature concerning Ancient Greek verbal aspect demonstrates that, while there are important areas of agreement, there are also a number of issues as yet unresolved, or at best multifariously expounded.1 A significant factor contributing to this state of affairs is the precarious state of methodology in this arena.2 It is rare to find work on Greek aspect that deliberately and clearly expresses a defined and considered methodological approach. Assumptions are made without explanation; linguistic approaches are adopted without due regard to competing models; terminology lacks precision, not to mention universal application, and so it goes.3 No doubt part of the reason for this is that method is an issue of considerable difficulty in aspectology; it is not patently obvious how to proceed, nor what the presuppositional and linguistic issues really are. Hence this chapter. The aim here is to provide a detailed and reasonably comprehensive account of the methodological issues involved in Greek aspect studies. Undoubtedly I will have my own methodological blind spots, and there will be points at which the reader may disagree with the methodological choices made here, but the approach will be transparent and the assumptions made will be acknowledged as such. ––––––– 1

2

3

Indeed, some even reject the category altogether; see C. J. Ruijgh, ‘L’emploi “inceptif” du thème de présent du verbe grec’, Mnemosyne 38 (1985), 7–9. ‘Certainly, any methodological monopoly is quite unjustified at the present time.’ Schuyler Brown, ‘Biblical Philology, Linguistics and the Problem of Method’, Heythrop Journal 20 (1979), 298. On the confusion relating to terminology, see Robert E. Picirilli, ‘The Meaning of the Tenses in New Testament Greek: Where Are We?’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48/3 (2005), 536.

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There are a range of methodological issues that require examination and clarification. First, there are terminological issues; aspect, Aktionsart, discourse analysis, background, foreground, and remoteness receive treatment. Second, the complex issue of linguistic assumptions is addressed, with linguistic models, privative and equipollent oppositions, grammatical aspect, and synchronic and diachronic approaches explored. Third, the crucial semantic and pragmatic distinction is unfolded, with attention given to the principle of cancelability. Fourth, the problem of determining aspectual values is raised, with interactions between aspect and Aktionsart, inductive analysis, and aspectual context being the suggested approaches. Finally, a rationale is provided for the limitation of sources that is imposed in this book. 2. Terminology 2.1 Aspect The simplest way to define aspect is as ‘viewpoint’.4 This refers to the way in which the author/speaker chooses to depict an activity or state, the usual opposition being ‘internal’ (imperfective) and ‘external’ (perfective). That is, the action or state may be viewed from the inside as though it is unfolding before the writer/speaker, or from the outside as though it is seen as a whole. Fanning elucidates this in the following way: The action can be viewed from a reference-point within the action, without reference to the beginning or end-point of the action, but with a focus instead on its internal structure or make-up. Or the action can be viewed from a vantage-point outside the action, with focus on the whole action from beginning to end, but without reference to its internal structure.5

This is a useful way into the concept. Porter defines aspect in the following way: ‘Greek verbal aspect is a synthetic semantic category (realized in the forms of verbs) used of meaningful oppositions in a network of tense systems to grammaticalize the author’s reasoned subjective choice of conception of a process.’6 Whilst an important technical definition, this may leave the non-specialist somewhat confused. The key to Porter’s definition is his ‘conception of a process’; in other words, aspect is how the author conceives ––––––– 4 5 6

Evans, Verbal Syntax, 18; Bache, ‘Aspect’, 64. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 27. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 88.

CHAPTER ONE: METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

9

(or views) the particular process or activity. Porter’s definition is helpfully recast by Decker; ‘Aspect is the semantic category by which a speaker or writer grammaticalizes a view of the situation by the selection of a particular verb form in the verbal system.’7 Again, the key here is ‘view of the situation’; the author casts the activity from a certain viewpoint.8 Porter’s and Decker’s definitions assume that aspect is a semantic category. While this assumption needs further clarification and investigation, at this point it is sufficient to note that this refers to the way in which aspect is encoded in Greek; it is grammaticalized in the verbal morphology, and is therefore an inherent constituent of the verbal form. This concept is expressed by Porter in his ‘synthetic semantic category (realized in the forms of verbs)’, and by Decker in his ‘semantic category by which a speaker or writer grammaticalizes a view of the situation’. Put simply, aspect is built into the verbal forms of Greek. It must be understood that this is first and foremost an assumption upon which there is not universal agreement. However, it is an assumption that is becoming standardized and is one of the assumptions made here (see § 3.3 below). Inevitably, this has important implications for our understanding of aspect and its function in the verbal network.

––––––– 7 8

Decker, Temporal Deixis, 26. It is unfortunate that aspect is occasionally defined in terms of temporal relations rather than simply viewpoint. While the issue of tense and the verb is an important, and controversial, subject, I am not here referring to that subject, but rather to the definition of aspect; aspect is sometimes defined in a temporal sense. Fanning notes this phenomenon in the works of Koschmieder, Ruijgh, and Galton, who describe aspect as reflecting the relationship of the event to the ‘I’ on a time-line. Fanning corrects this: ‘this relationship between the action and the reference-point from which it is viewed is not primarily a chronological one, even though it can produce that effect. If the relationship must be pictured in any dimension, a spatial one fits better, since the distinction is one of proximity vs. distance.’ Rather, Fanning upholds the position of Lyons, that ‘aspect is non-deictic, and does nothing to relate the event described to the time of the utterance’; Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 18–27. Works more recent than Fanning’s that have persisted with this temporal definition of aspect include Olsen, Aspect, 5–6; and Carol L. Tenny, Aspectual Roles and the Syntax–Semantics Interface (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 52; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 3.

10

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

2.2 Aktionsart Aktionsart is a term that has engendered much confusion, especially when compared to aspect. In the past the two terms have sometimes been used interchangeably, though more recently some agreement has been reached as to how to distinguish clearly between them.9 ‘The term “Aktionsart” has been reserved for procedural characteristics, seen especially as lexically expressed, while the term “aspect” has been restricted to grammatically expressed viewpoint features.’10 These procedural characteristics refer to the various ways in which particular verbs behave in particular settings, or ‘the “phasal structure”, “time extension” and “manner of development” […] ascribed to any given situation referred to by a verb’.11 In order to avoid confusion, Fanning has suggested that the term procedural characteristics be employed rather than Aktionsart. However, the latter term is now so widely employed both within the current discussion on Greek aspect and the wider linguistic world that it will be the term adopted here.12 It is important to understand the distinction between aspect and Aktionsart, a distinction that has now received considerable attention, and summarized by Bache: Thus according to scholars like Agrell (1908), Jacobsohn (1926 and 1933), Hermann (1927 and 1933), Porzig (1927), Koschmieder (1928/29), Goedsche (1940), Sørensen (1943), Rundgren (1959) and Forsyth (1970), to mention but a few, the distinction between aspect and Aktionsart must be maintained on semantic grounds. Aspect is typically defined as the ‘Gesichtspunkt, unter dem ein Vorgang bertrachtet wird’ (Porzig, 1927: 152), that is, ‘the speaker/writer’s view of the action or situation described’. Contrariwise, Aktionsart is defined as ‘die Art und Weise, wie die Handlung des Verbums vor sich geht’ (Brugmann, 1904: 493), that is, the manner is

––––––– 9 10 11 12

Bache, ‘Aspect’. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 17. Bache, ‘Aspect’, 70. More recently, the term actionality has also been suggested. See Pier Marco Bertinetto and Denis Delfitto, ‘Aspect vs. Actionality: Why they Should be Kept Apart’, in Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe (ed. Östen Dahl; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000), 189– 225. Aktionsart has even been labelled ‘l’aspect objectif’, as opposed to ‘l’aspect subjectif’; Jens Holt, Études d’aspect (Acta Jutlandica Aarsskrift for Aarhus Universitet 15.2; Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1943), 8.

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[sic] which an action or situation ‘develops or proceeds in particular circumstances’ (Forsyth, 1970: 19).13

A further distinction is made in that aspect is a subjective category (though not entirely), and Aktionsart an objective category (though not entirely).14 This has to do with the fact that an author/speaker chooses the aspect with which s/he portrays an action, while the Aktionsart qualities of an action refer to the way in which the action occurs in reality. The qualification that neither of these categories is entirely subjective or objective is simply a recognition that often aspect is determined by standardized usage and expression, or a lack of choice,15 and Aktionsart is still a matter of observation and interpretation. However, with this caveat in place, it is a helpful distinction to regard aspect as primarily subjective and Aktionsart as primarily objective. The distinctions between aspect and Aktionsart must lead us to reject a common misconception regarding aspect—that it views action as completed or in-progress.16 The problem with this description of aspect is that completion and progress describe how the action has occurred or is occurring, which is objectively determined, and thus properly belongs to the realm of Aktionsart. Perfective aspect views an action externally, but that action need not necessarily be completed. Similarly, imperfective aspect views an action internally, but that action need not necessarily be in progress. Whether or not such actions are completed or in-progress ‘in reality’ depends on contextual factors, and is to be determined in the same way that other Aktionsart features are detected. Having said as much, it is quite natural to view actions that actually are completed with perfective aspect, and actions that actually are in progress with imperfective aspect. It is incorrect, however, to assume that it is aspect that makes them so. ––––––– 13 14 15

16

Bache, ‘Aspect’, 64. Ibid. 65–66. ‘I propose that in our definition of aspect we depart from the optional nature of aspectual choice […] and then proceed to the distribution of aspects, i.e. to aspectual functions, especially in relation to Aktionsart and tense. By adopting this approach it is possible, I think, to provide reasonable justification for the view that aspect is basically “subjective” but may have various “objectively” determined functions.’ Ibid. 67. See, for example, E. L. Blansitt, ‘Progressive Aspect’, Working Papers on Language Universals 18 (1975), 1–34. Blansitt does, however, helpfully recognize that there must be a distinction made between a progressive/non-progressive opposition and an imperfective/perfective opposition; they are two different things.

12

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

A final distinction between aspect and Aktionsart is that the former is generally regarded as a semantic category, while the latter is a pragmatic category. This is explored below. 2.3 Discourse analysis Discourse analysis is a broad term currently lacking a universally acknowledged definition or method. Porter recognizes this lack of cohesion yet helpfully points to the agreement that may be found. Although discourse itself is a flexible term (with anything from a single word to a much longer language event constituting a discourse), the distinctiveness of discourse analysis and the concern of discourse analysts is to be able to provide as comprehensive a description as possible of the various components of a given discourse, including its meaning and structure, and the means by which these are created and conveyed.17

Discourse analysis is thus a discipline that moves beyond purely atomistic analyses of texts and reaches for a broader understanding of how texts function, are structured, and ultimately convey meaning.18 This is achieved by elucidating both micro and macro components of texts and how the two relate.19 It also ‘examines the relationship between the linguistic signs of the discourse and their “real world” context (e.g. time, place, speaker, audience)’.20 In this book, the term discourse analysis is employed to this end, despite the potentially confusing overlap with the term discourse, which is utilized when speaking of direct discourse, indirect discourse, authorial discourse and

––––––– 17

18

19

20

Stanley E. Porter, ‘Discourse Analysis and New Testament Studies: An Introductory Survey’, in Porter, Discourse Analysis, 19. ‘Methodologically the old approach to grammar was an explanation of items in isolation. Discourse analysis exchanges items for functions.’ G. P. V. du Plooy, ‘Aspect and Biblical Exegesis’, Neotestamentica 25 (1991), 165. See Jeffrey T. Reed, ‘The Cohesiveness of Discourse: Towards a Model of Linguistic Criteria for Analyzing New Testament Discourse’, in Discourse Analysis and the New Testament: Approaches and Results (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Jeffrey T. Reed; JSNTS 170; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 28–46. Stanley E. Porter and Jeffrey T. Reed, ‘Greek Grammar since BDF: A Retrospective and Prospective Analysis’, Filologia Neotestamentaria 4 (1991), 159.

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so forth.21 The former term refers to a discipline, while the latter terms are descriptive of parts of text; context should clarify which term is intended. The features of discourse analysis will be further explored as its interaction with verbal aspect becomes evident. 2.4 Background, foreground These terms properly belong to the discipline of discourse analysis and as a result of the lack of uniformity in this discipline, both terms are used in differing, sometimes contrary, ways in the literature.22 Part of Porter’s discourse-analytical schema is his ‘planes of discourse’: background, foreground, and frontground.23 In this schema, background refers to ‘the basis for the discourse’, foreground refers to the introduction of significant characters or climactic references to concrete situations, and frontground refers to the introduction of elements that are ‘even more discrete, defined, contoured and complex’.24 Thus Porter’s schema employs background to refer to mainline events—events that carry the main movements of the narrative proper. The reason these mainline events are called background has to do with their level of prominence; Porter regards them as less significant since they are simply recording the undefined sequence of events. Likewise, Porter’s foreground has to do with non-mainline events or descriptions. These are so called because they are deemed more significant than mainline events as they provide extra comment or fill out the meaning of certain events or situations. While this use of the terms background and foreground is understandable, I find it misleading and potentially confusing. Hopper uses the terms in the exact opposite manner: It is evidently a universal of narrative discourse that in any extended text an overt distinction is made between the language of the actual story line and the language of supportive material which does not itself narrate the main events. I refer to the former—the parts of the narrative which relate events belonging to the skeletal

––––––– 21

22

23 24

Of course the type of discourse has a direct bearing upon the task of discourse analysis, as we shall see; J. P. Louw, ‘Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament’, The Bible Translator 24/1 (1973), 103. See Helen Aristar Dry, ‘Foregrounding: An Assessment’, in Language in Context: Essays for Robert E. Longacre (ed. Shin Ja J. Hwang and William R. Merrifield; A Publication of The Summer Institute of Linguistics and The University of Texas at Arlington, 1992), 435. Porter, Idioms, 23. Ibid. 23.

14

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE structure of the BACKGROUND.25

discourse—as

FOREGROUND

and

the

latter

as

Thus Hopper labels the mainline of the narrative foreground and nonmainline of the narrative background.26 This seems a more sensible approach in that it avoids the potentially false conclusion that mainline events are not significant, as they surely often are. This is not to say that background material may not be highly significant also, but it ‘does not constitute the assertion of events in the story line but makes statements which are CONTINGENT and dependent on the story-line events’.27 The dependent nature of such statements makes a more natural connection with the term background than foreground. Having said this, however, it is important to remember that the term background has to do with the position off the mainline, rather than prominence. 2.5 Remoteness The issue of tense and temporality in the Greek verb has now received considerable attention from scholars.28 The traditional view that the Greek verbal system grammaticalizes temporal reference (i.e. contains tense) in the indicative mood has come under serious attack, most notably from McKay, Porter, and Decker. While the recognition of the existence of aspect is longstanding, it was traditionally understood as operating alongside tense, and subordinate to tense. McKay, however, suggested that aspect was the dominant value expressed by the verb, rather than tense, and Porter has built upon this thesis, concluding that tense does not exist at all. If this is correct (and there are many who do not share this view),29 there needs to be a value ––––––– 25 26

27 28

29

Hopper, ‘Foregrounding’, 213. See also Helen Aristar Dry, ‘The Movement of Narrative Time’, Journal of Literary Semantics 12 (1983), 48. Hopper, ‘Foregrounding’, 215–16. The term tense is here used to refer to grammaticalized temporal reference. This is to be distinguished from the term tense-form, which refers only to the morphological form of the verb in question. It is to be noted, however, that the secondary literature will use the term tense to refer to temporal reference or to the morphological verbal form, or both. As we see from this incensed response: ‘Nous ne sommes pas d’accord avec ceux qui prétendent que les thèmes en question n’expriment pas le temps mais l’aspect’; C. J. Ruijgh, ‘Les valeurs temporelles des formes verbales en grec ancient’, in The Function of Tense in Texts (ed. Jadranka Gvozdanović and Theo. A. J. M. Janssen in collaboration with Östen

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15

that distinguishes between those verbal forms that share the same aspect, as do the present and imperfect tense-forms. It is almost universally accepted that these two forms grammaticalize imperfective aspect, yet there are two differing approaches through which the distinction between them is understood. Those who uphold the validity of a temporal understanding of the Greek verb claim that the distinction is tense; the present tense-form grammaticalizes imperfective aspect and present temporal reference, while the imperfect grammaticalizes imperfective aspect and past temporal reference. Others, however, who reject a temporal understanding of the Greek verb, may prefer the concept of remoteness to distinguish the present from the imperfect tense-form; the present is regarded as non-remote, while the imperfect is regarded as remote. Decker elucidates: ‘This is a broader concept than past time, although it may (and often does) include remote time as part of its range of use. The remoteness may also be remote from a logical or narrative perspective’.30 Remoteness is a spatial rather than temporal category, to do with distance or lack of proximity, yet it may express itself temporally in particular contexts. In fact, remoteness may be expressed though temporal remoteness, logical remoteness, or contextual remoteness. These concepts will be explored later, but by way of summary Millhouse states that ‘Anything that has a tendency to distance or diminish the context in the eyes of the speaker from some other feature […] is remoteness’.31 It is important to recognize that this feature of remoteness is employed according to the author’s communicative purposes; it is a linguistic device, chosen subjectively (within certain bounds) in much the same way that aspect is. The ‘distance’ evoked by remoteness is thus not physical or literal, but is rather figurative and abstract—used in order to achieve linguistic purposes. It is not the intention of this book to weigh heavily into the debate concerning tense in the Greek verbal system. This has been attempted elsewhere (most pointedly in the work of Decker), and the interest here has more to do with aspect itself and its discourse function within narrative text. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that my position on the matter will be relevant to

30 31

Dahl; Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Verhandelingen, Afd. Letterkunds, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 144; Amsterdam, 1991), 205 [italics are original]. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 41. Roy R. Millhouse, ‘The Use of the Imperfect Verb Form in the New Testament: An Investigation into Aspectual and Tense Relationships in Hellenistic Greek’ (M.A. thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1999), 58–59.

16

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

the argument developed in this book and, therefore, spatial terminology such as remoteness will be adopted in preference to tense-related terminology. Furthermore, since spatial categories such as remoteness are broader than those of tense (in that they may accommodate temporal expression as well as non-temporal expression, while tense may only accommodate the former), it is possible that a spatial understanding of the verbal network may open up new possibilities that will help to solve some of the longstanding problems in our understanding of particular features of the verbal network. 3. Linguistic assumptions 3.1 Linguistic models The discussion surrounding Greek aspect demonstrates an increasing awareness of the role of linguistic theory in grammatical analysis. In the same way that the discussion is without universal consensus in a number of areas, so too is it without consensus in the area of linguistic theory. As such, Stamps acknowledges that ‘in the recent upsurge of grammatical analyses of the New Testament or Hellenistic Greek based on modern linguistic theory, New Testament interpreters are faced with a pluralism in grammatical theory’.32 Modern commentators lament the shortcomings in linguistic method employed by earlier grammarians, yet have failed to provide an agreed upon alternative. ‘Some studies utilize Chomskian linguistics, others systemic linguistics. The biblical critic needs to understand the options before using a “look-up and footnote” approach to grammars when interpreting a text.’33 This is an issue of presupposition that will not easily be resolved. It is now the duty of the modern grammarian not only to adopt a linguistic model consciously, but to make this choice explicit to the reader. Distinctive to the modern approaches is the importance of function in linguistics. Du Plooy notes, ‘It has become necessary to distinguish between the “traditional” as opposed to the “functional” approach to language […]. The former focuses on a language item as such, and tries to determine what that item (in itself) is capable of doing. The latter evaluates language phenomena in terms of functions in particular contexts.’34 This is reflected in ––––––– 32

33 34

Dennis L. Stamps, ‘Interpreting the Language of St Paul: Grammar, Modern Linguistics and Translation Theory’, in Porter, Discourse Analysis, 131. Ibid. 133. Du Plooy, ‘Aspect and Biblical Exegesis’, 157.

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the move away from solely atomistic analyses to those that are sensitive to micro and macro issues—in particular, discourse analysis. Du Plooy posits that aspect is best studied in terms of this functional approach.35 Within the modern approaches, there are two broad options from which to choose. On the one hand, Chomsky, the father of generative linguistics, is concerned with the behaviour of mental patterns underlying the use of language. The problem for the linguist […] is to determine from the data of performance the underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the speaker–hearer and that he puts to use in actual performance. Hence, in the technical sense, linguistic theory is mentalistic, since it is concerned with discovering a mental reality underlying actual behavior.36

Chomsky has of course enjoyed massive influence throughout modern linguistics, particularly in Northern American schools. He has sought to restrain the reactionary move away from universal grammar, which is reflected in the comparative linguistics of the 19th century, arguing that diversity on the surface level of various languages does not disavow uniformity on the level of deep structure.37 On the other hand, J. R. Firth, the formative influence behind the ‘London School’ of linguistics, and Neo-Firthians such as M. A. K. Halliday, propose a non-mentalistic model of linguistics that is concerned with recognizing systems within empirical data, rather than presupposing them a priori; ‘Science should not impose systems on languages, it should look for systems in speech activity, and, having found them, state the facts in a suitable language.’38 Thus, systemic linguistics is concerned with inductively formed descriptions of language phenomena. It is concerned ‘to establish a network ––––––– 35 36 37

38

Ibid. 157. Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1965), 4. ‘It is commonly held that modern linguistic and anthropological investigations have conclusively refuted the doctrines of classical universal grammar, but this claim seems to me very much exaggerated. Modern work has, indeed, shown a great diversity in the surface structures of languages. However, since the study of deep structure has not been its concern, it has not attempted to show a corresponding diversity of underlying structures, and, in fact, the evidence that has been accumulated in modern study of language does not appear to suggest anything of this sort.’ Ibid. 118. J. R. Firth, Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951 (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), 144.

18

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

of systems of relationships […], which will account for all the semantically relevant choices in the language as a whole’.39 Such a system of relationships is meant to reflect the fact that ‘choice of a particular element within a language implies not choosing other elements’.40 There is an uneasy relationship between generative grammar (Chomsky) and systemic grammar (Firth–Halliday); exponents of the former regard the latter as limited since it deals primarily with the surface-level; exponents of the latter regard the former as prescriptive rather than descriptive. Chomskian linguistics has registered an objection to such high emphasis upon empirical evidence, claiming that a language goes far beyond a set corpus, and includes the infinite number of sentences which can be generated, so that emphasis rests upon the means for production in the sentence rather than upon the sentences themselves. This may be true, but each of these sentences must still be tested empirically for grammaticalness as a check upon the system which generates them and to avoid pure mentalism.41

In the current discussion, Porter may be seen as a key proponent of a systemic approach to aspect, while Olsen may be regarded as a proponent of a generative approach (she does not explicitly reveal this, but it appears to be the case judging by the nature of her work). It goes without saying that this ––––––– 39 40

41

Crystal, Linguistics, 453. Stanley E. Porter, ‘Studying Ancient Languages from a Modern Linguistic Perspective: Essential Terms and Terminology’, Filologia Neotestamentaria 2 (1989), 152. Ibid. 152. The divide is often also cast in terms of ‘formal’ and ‘functional’ approaches: ‘There are a number of different linguistic models being practiced […]. These various schools of thought tend to reveal a major divide between so-called formal models […] and functional models […]. For example, a formal paradigm defines a language in terms of a set of sentences to be generated, while a functional paradigm as an instrument of social interaction, even the most important social instrument […]; formal grammars see the primary function of a language as the expression of thoughts, while functional grammars see it as communication; formal grammars distinguish between competence and performance […] while functional grammars do not draw such a clear-cut distinction, choosing to emphasize a communicative competence which contacts language use in actual social settings; formal grammars believe language universals are innate to the human being, a category of the mind […] while functional grammars view universals as explainable in relation to communicative purposes and actual language usage, as well as biological and psychological factors; and lastly, formal grammars establish a set of discrete and independent hierarchical relations among syntax [...], semantics […] and pragmatics [...], while functional grammars see pragmatics as an overriding category which encompasses semantics and syntax’; Ibid. 155–56.

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choice is reflected in their conclusions. Given that the language under examination is ancient and no native speakers exist, it seems to me more sensible to adopt a functional approach that is concerned primarily with the use of the language as a communicative tool, rather than the thought patterns that produce it. A generative approach, for all its merit, seems hampered by the fact that the minds that generated the language are now inscrutable.42 A third option is of course available, which is to adopt no specific linguistic model at all. Voelz describes his own approach (and that of Fanning) as ‘more ad hoc, believing in a basic system of how usage is flexible for literary purposes’.43 While I sympathize with this notion, in the end it is probably a little naïve. Any study into language must inevitably adopt some kind of linguistic model, the question being whether this has happened consciously or not, and whether the model is well developed or not. Surely a conscious decision is preferable, as is the adoption of a well-developed model, rather than one that is ad hoc. 3.2 Privative and equipollent oppositions A privative opposition is a binary opposition44 where one member is seen as marked by the presence of a feature, which its other member lacks (i.e. it is ‘unmarked’).45 Within a privative opposition, ‘the two members can frequently be interchangeable in specific contexts, because the unmarked member may substitute for the marked one without introducing an opposing sense’.46 Indeed, the unmarked member may even adopt the characteristics of the marked member; only the marked member ‘has a consistent, uncancelable semantic meaning’,47 whereas unmarked members may be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on the pragmatic context. An equipollent opposition, in contrast, ‘is one where the members are seen as ––––––– 42

43 44

45 46 47

For a useful introduction to both functionalism and generativism, see John Lyons, Language and Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 224–35. Voelz, ‘Proposal’, 154, n. 4. An opposition is a term used in linguistics to refer to linguistically important differences between units. It refers to a contrast between the presence and absence of a feature; Crystal, Linguistics, 327. Ibid. 371. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 58. Olsen, Aspect, 31.

20

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

logically equivalent to each other’.48 In this type of opposition both members are marked with uncancelable semantic features, and while they may not encode opposite or symmetrical values, both encode some specific value. Thus an equipollent opposition offers a choice of ‘this or that’, whereas a privative opposition offers ‘this or something’. Porter and Fanning both regard the aspectual system as consisting of equipollent oppositions. Porter claims that there is ‘no apparent evidence’ that any Greek verbal aspects are unmarked; ‘Greek verbal aspect, therefore, appears to function on the basis of equipollent binary oppositions’.49 Similarly, Fanning asserts that ‘both the aspects have a positive marking, rather than one being merely the neutral or negative foil for the other’.50 In contrast, Ruipérez, writing much earlier than Porter and Fanning, envisages the aspectual system as consisting of privative oppositions; ‘Por nuestra parte, estimamos que hay oposiciones morfológicas privativas y graduales.’51 Olsen has since championed the concept of a privative analysis. I show that analyzing Koine Greek lexical aspect in terms of privative rather than equipollent features avoids the shortcomings in [Fanning’s] model, by encoding semantic lexical properties as marked features and allowing unmarked features to be assigned variable interpretations, depending on the presence of other constituents and the pragmatic context.52

While her main concern has to do with the oppositions within lexical aspect, Olsen also endorses a privative analysis of grammatical aspect.53 In terms of lexical aspect Olsen is probably correct. She argues, ‘for each opposition, […] only the positive member ([+telic], [+dynamic] or [+durative]) has a consistent, uncancelable semantic meaning, whereas verbs not marked [+telic], [+dynamic], or [+durative] may be interpreted, respectively, as either telic or atelic, durative or punctiliar, dynamic or stative, depending on other lexical constituents and the pragmatic context’.54 While this analysis seems to hold for lexical aspect, it is less convincing that the oppositions of grammatical aspect (i.e. of the forms of verbs) are also ––––––– 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Crystal, Linguistics, 164. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 90. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 71. Ruipérez, Aspectos, 15. Olsen, Aspect, 199–200. Ibid. 19–20. Ibid. 31.

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privative. It seems quite clear that the opposition between, say, aorist and imperfect tense-forms is one in which each member is grammatically marked for aspect. The aorist forms are unmistakably perfective and the imperfect forms are plainly imperfective in aspect. This is Lloyd’s conclusion; the ‘privative opposition is virtually meaningless when applied to the relatively simple bipolar Greek system. There were only two aspects, each with an equally valid function which may be defined equally precisely’.55 Therefore, along with Fanning and Porter, the Greek verbal aspectual network is here regarded as a series of equipollent oppositions. Having said this, however, there appears to be no reason why other semantic features besides grammatical aspect may not be expressed through privative oppositions. 3.3 Grammatical aspect It is usually assumed that aspect is a grammatical category, grammaticalized in verbal forms.56 While this assumption is widespread, it is not shared by all. Heinämäki opposes this assumption and, while his interest is in Finnish aspect, he describes the problem: ‘traditionally, aspect was treated primarily as a problem of morphology rather than one of semantics, and unlike in the Slavonic languages, the verb in Finnish is not marked for the aspects’.57 Rather than a verbal account of aspect, Heinämäki regards Finnish aspect as being expressed through the whole sentence.58 Several factors can contribute to the formation of aspect in Finnish, starting with the lexical semantics of the verb, certain derivational morphology, case variation of the object, presence or absence of certain types of limiting temporal or destination phrases, etc. As a result, there is no simple, one-to-one correspondence between the aspects and the forms that signal them.59

––––––– 55 56

57 58 59

Lloyd, Anatomy, 84. Walter Breu, ‘Interactions Between Lexical, Temporal and Aspectual Meanings’, Studies in Language 18/1 (1994), 23–24; ‘A grammatical category of aspect […] is constituted by its grammemes, which are traditionally defined as members of an opposition known as the opposition between the imperfective and the perfective aspects’. Orvokki Heinämäki, ‘Aspect as Boundedness in Finnish’, in BBL, 207. Ibid. 207–8. Ibid. 220.

22

VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

Kiefer argues along similar lines, claiming that aspect is ‘a sentential category rather than a morphological one’.60 He describes how a sentence may be recognized as either perfective or imperfective in Hungarian, and concludes more generally that any language can express aspect in one way or another, but ‘not all of these distinctions need be grammaticalized’.61 Moreover, those languages that do grammaticalize aspect may differ in the ways in which they do so. This raises a serious challenge. Have scholars been too quick to regard Greek aspect purely in terms of verbal morphemes? Can we rule out the possibility that aspect may be a sentential category instead, or as well? At this stage of the discussion, to entertain this issue seriously would be to throw into question all previous contributions on Greek aspect, and effectively restart the debate on new grounds. I do not wish to do that. While the assumption of morphological aspect is just that, an assumption, at this stage it has not been shown to be a false one. There has not been any significant challenge to this assumption, at least in relation to Greek aspect, and the textual evidence has not as yet required it.62 However, the possibility of sentential aspect is one to which it is surely worth keeping an eye peeled.63 Perhaps it is the case that, while Greek aspect is verbal, it is also expressed on the level of sentences, or at least clauses. Clauses may well express an aspectual context due to a gathering of verbal forms that encode the same aspect. This is not the same as the sentential aspect described by Heinämäki and Kiefer, who regard aspect as encoded by the sentence, but rather it is a recognition that a clause may give expression to a particular aspect due to a dominance of verb forms within the sentence that do encode that particular aspect. In this book, such phenomena will be ––––––– 60 61 62

63

Ferenc Kiefer, ‘Some Peculiarities of the Aspectual System in Hungarian’, in BBL, 185. Ibid. 186. Indeed, it would appear that Modern Greek is also best regarded as morphologically encoding grammatical aspect. See Geoffrey Horrocks and Melita Stavrou, ‘Actions and their Results in Greek and English: The Complementarity of Morphologically Encoded (Viewpoint) Aspect and Syntactic Resultative Predication’, Journal of Semantics 20 (2003), 309. This may also be called discourse aspect; see Ronny Boogaart, ‘Towards a Theory of Discourse Aspectuality’, in Temporal Reference, Aspect and Actionality: Vol. 1: Semantic and Syntactic Perspectives (ed. Pier Marco Bertinetto, Valentina Bianchi, James Higginbotham, and Mario Squartini; Torino: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1995), 221–36.

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referred to as aspectual context, which is a sufficiently broad term that may refer to clauses, sentences, or larger discourse units. 3.4 Synchronic and diachronic approaches Since Ferdinand de Saussure, the two main temporal dimensions of linguistic investigation have been synchronic and diachronic.64 Synchronic linguistics examines languages as they exist at a particular point in time; ‘one describes a “state” of the language, disregarding whatever changes might be taking place’.65 Synchronic analysis is one of the hallmarks of modern linguistics.66 Diachronic analysis examines languages from the point of view of their historical development, often utilizing the discoveries of synchronic analysis as a preliminary.67 Of the major contributors to New Testament Greek aspect studies, most have engaged in synchronic pursuits, with the major exception being McKay, whose first contribution in 1965 was a highly diachronic analysis. As McKay continued to contribute, however, his work became progressively more synchronic in nature, focusing on defined corpora, such as the papyri and the New Testament. No one can question the importance of McKay’s early work. However, diachronic analysis (such as his 1965 article, ‘The Use of the Ancient Greek Perfect Down to the Second Century A.D.’) is best conducted once the necessary synchronic work is established, which is only relatively recently being done. In fact, there is still much to be done on the synchronic plane before diachronic analysis of substantial value may continue. It is due to this recognition that the present study is primarily synchronic in focus. However, diachronic sensitivity must be attained; Evans critiques Porter for failing here in regard to the temporal anomalies of verbal implicature: ‘The exceptional uses on which [Porter] concentrates are surely best explained in aspectual terms. But he fails to consider the simple explanation of these anomalies as fossilized survivals of an older aspectual system overlaid by increasingly important temporal distinctions.’68 In order to attain a degree of diachronic sensitivity, the texts chosen here for investigation allow for some diachronic ––––––– 64 65 66 67

68

Crystal, Linguistics, 449. Ibid. 449. Porter, ‘Modern Linguistic Perspective’, 153. Crystal, Linguistics, 135. In this way, modern diachronic studies may be distinguished from earlier comparative linguistics. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 42.

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

consideration (see below), but this is primarily intended to serve the synchronic program. 4. Pragmatics and semantics The terms semantics and pragmatics enjoy a wide range of usage in linguistic discussion, though within the current discussion on Greek aspect they have become fairly well defined in the following manner. Semantics refers to the core grammatical values of a linguistic item; the values of verbal items being of primary interest. The semantic value is the uncancelable essence of meaning (see below for the discussion on cancelability) that is inherent to the verb form in question. Pragmatics here refers to the way in which language is used in context.69 It has to do with linguistic performance and implicature, which will vary depending on lexical, stylistic, grammatical and deictic interactions,70 and thus refers to cancelable features.71 The interaction between semantics and pragmatics is a key element in recent discussion, and is a one-way interaction that involves semantic values finding expression in text through pragmatic implicature. Most of the major participants in recent discussion regard aspect as a semantic category72 that is expressed in a variety of ways pragmatically when it interacts with lexica and other elements. Aktionsart is regarded as a pragmatic category.73 Recent critiques of traditional analyses of the verbal network are often based on the perceived failure to distinguish properly semantics from pragmatics. This is the argument put forward by Porter and Decker, who claim that the traditional temporal view of the verb is brought about by a lack of clarity between semantics and pragmatics. So Decker writes, ‘Only by blurring the line between these two categories can the traditional explanation ––––––– 69

70 71 72 73

Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Peter Collins and David Blair, An Introduction to Language (3rd ed.; Sydney: Harcourt Brace, 1996), 159. Ibid. 159–63. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 104. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 21; Porter, Verbal Aspect, 88; Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 49–50, 83–84. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 49–50. However, Evans allows the possibility that Aktionsarten may become grammaticalized, and argues that this is the case with stativity in the perfect tense-form; Evans, Verbal Syntax, 21–22. This raises the issue of the process of grammaticalization, which is complex and will not be entered into here, except to acknowledge that ‘conversational implicatures frequently become “semanticized,” that is, become part of the semantic polysemies of a form’; Paul J. Hopper and Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Grammaticalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 75.

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be rehabilitated. If the proper domain of semantics is strictly concerned with what the grammatical form means in and of itself, then it would be very difficult to maintain a temporal view of the verb.’74 Rather, they argue that temporal reference is expressed through deixis, which is an element of pragmatics.75 Temporal reference is not the only area in which traditional analyses have confused semantics and pragmatics. Evans claims that this is the problem with the traditional understanding of the perfect tense-form; ‘So the weakness of the traditional interpretation of the Greek perfect is that it operates only on the pragmatic level and does not adequately describe the grammatical category.’76 Thus the failure to distinguish clearly between semantics and pragmatics appears to be a legitimate problem within traditional analyses. Within recent discussion, the distinction between semantics and pragmatics has been at the forefront of debate. While both have acknowledged the importance of this distinction, Porter and Fanning have each been accused of error in this regard. Carson suggests that Fanning ‘will have to demonstrate a greater grasp of the fundamental distinction between semantics and pragmatics’,77 and Porter’s critique is similar in that he thinks Fanning has conflated Aktionsart and aspect.78 Similarly, Fanning inflicts Porter with the same charge in regard to his stative aspect: ‘I wonder, however, how his analysis of the perfect can be incorporated into the category of “aspect as conception of a process”, since stative (his label for the perfect) is an Aktionsart, not an aspect.’79 Whether either charge is accurate or not, they demonstrate the vital importance of the distinction between semantics and pragmatics on all levels of the debate, and in this book ‘a clear ––––––– 74 75

76 77

78 79

Decker, Temporal Deixis, 153–54. ‘In all languages there are many words and expressions whose reference relies entirely on the circumstances of the utterance and can only be understood in light of these circumstances. This aspect of pragmatics is called deixis […]. Deixis abounds in language use and marks one of the boundaries of semantics and pragmatics’; Fromkin, An Introduction to Language, 162–63 [emphasis is original]. See also Porter, Verbal Aspect, 99– 102; Decker, Temporal Deixis, 55–56. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 27–28. D. A. Carson, ‘An Introduction to the Porter/Fanning Debate’, in Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research (ed. Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson; JSNTS 80; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 25. Porter, ‘Defence’, 38. Fanning, ‘Approaches’, 49–50.

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

distinction [will] be made between semantic meaning and conversational pragmatic implicature’.80 While this distinction is essential, semantics and pragmatics must be brought together at a number of points. First, for studies into semantics to be ultimately useful, they must demonstrate the ways in which semantic values are expressed pragmatically. Second, it is impossible to ascertain semantic values inductively except by seeing through various pragmatic implicatures into the semantic domain that lies behind them. That is, the various pragmatic expressions of a particular verb form must be analyzed in order to determine the core semantic values that inhere its expressions. 4.1 Cancelability One of the important methodological principles to have emerged during the discussion of Greek aspect has been the principle of cancelability. This principle is related to semantics in that semantics is concerned with values that are inherent in grammatical forms, and are therefore not cancelable. Olsen adopts this distinction between semantic meaning and pragmatic implicature; ‘semantic meanings may not be canceled without contradiction or reinforced without redundancy [...]. In contrast, conversational pragmatic implicatures may be canceled or reinforced without contradiction or redundancy’.81 The concept of cancelability is most often employed in relation to the debate about tense; for example, it is argued that since there is a large percentage of present tense-forms that are not present referring, present temporality is a cancelable feature, and therefore is not a semantic feature of the verb. As Decker expresses, ‘If temporal reference is part of the semantic value of the form, then it is not cancelable’.82 The principle of cancelability, therefore, has implications for the type of model that is put forward to explain verbal phenomena. A model will be deemed more successful than another on the basis that it more successfully demonstrates the non-cancelability of its semantic content; in other words, the model with the least ‘exceptions’ will win the day. McKay gave expression to this concept when he argued that ‘whereas any of a number of different theories may adequately explain a reasonable proportion, or even a ––––––– 80 81 82

Olsen, Aspect, 4. Ibid. 17. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 38–39.

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majority, of the examples under consideration, the correct theory is likely to be the one which leaves the fewest anomalies’.83 4.2 Aspectual vagueness A commitment to the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is relevant to the discussion concerning the idea of aspectual vagueness. Porter recognizes that for some verbs there is a deficiency of morphological forms, thus restricting the choice of tense-form, and thereby restricting the choice of aspect. When the choice between one aspect and another is eliminated, it is proposed that aspectual vagueness ensues.84 Since aspect is regarded as a binary opposition, and its use represents a subjective choice of the language user, this means that when such a choice is not available, then the form that is available is used by default, and its aspect is diminished or not relevant—a lack of choice diminishes the significance of the usage. While we must recognize the issues raised by this deficiency in morphological forms, the concept of aspectual vagueness is rejected here. There are four reasons for this. First, a commitment to the semantic value of verbal aspect pushes us to acknowledge that aspect is encoded in verbal forms, whether or not there is aspectual choice represented by a particular lexeme. For example, the verb eivmi, should be regarded as imperfective in aspect because it is a present tense-form, regardless of the fact that this lexeme has no extant aorist counterpart. Indeed, the usage of this verb is entirely in keeping with imperfective aspect, and there is no evidence whatsoever that its aspect is diminished. Second, the possibility of verbal suppletion mitigates to some extent the problem of incomplete oppositions. Verbal suppletion here refers to the use of another lexeme’s morphological forms in order to complete an aspectual opposition. Where one lexeme may lack an extant aorist form, another lexeme’s aorist form may offer an aspectual alternative. For example, verbal suppletion suggests that, while eivmi, has no aorist form, the author may choose to use the aorist form of gi,nomai [evgeno,mhn], since these lexemes enjoy some overlap in their lexical domains.85 Such lexemes do not need to overlap completely; they need only overlap enough to effect successful substitution. ––––––– 83

84 85

K. L. McKay, ‘Repeated Action, the Potential and Reality in Ancient Greek’, Antichthon 15 (1981), 36. Porter, Verbal Aspect, 94. See Evans, Verbal Syntax, 223, 225.

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

Furthermore, the fact that the suppleting verb may have its own full set of oppositions—gi,nomai has its own present forms, after all—does not undermine verbal suppletion. It must be remembered that the lexical overlap is not exhaustive, and thus eivmi, and gi,nomai retain some distinction. As such, it might be said that evgeno,mhn provides an aorist alternative to eivmi,, but this does not affect the fully operational set of oppositions that gi,nomai enjoys. Third, the concept of aspectual vagueness may represent an overcommitment to theoretical presuppositions at the expense of what can plainly be observed through language use. That is, the prior commitment to aspect being chosen within a binary opposition should not overrule the fact that aspect may clearly exist even when there is no extant binary opposition. While theoretical presuppositions form a necessary component of aspectology—and that, indeed, is what much of this chapter is about—these should not be so controlling as to overturn observable features of usage. Since there is no compelling evidence that so-called aspectually vague verbs do not clearly convey aspect, it is unwise to assume as much purely for theoretical reasons. Fourth, our definition of verbal aspect protects us from the perceived problem of lack of morphological choice. Aspect is regarded as subjective within certain bounds (see § 2.2), and one of the limitations of subjectivity is morphological choice. Such a limitation may reduce choice, but it does not reduce aspect; since the subjectivity of aspectual choice is not absolute, the success of aspect is not dependent upon complete subjectivity. The suggested concept of aspectual vagueness, therefore, arises from certain presuppositional commitments, but is answered by other commitments that are more powerful, by verbal suppletion, and by the demonstrable presence of aspect in incomplete forms.86 5. Determining aspect An issue that has not satisfactorily been resolved in Greek aspect studies is the question of how many aspects actually exist, and by which forms they are expressed. The options range from two aspects (perfective and imperfective, as in Fanning and Evans), to three aspects (perfective, imperfective, stative, as ––––––– 86

Evans offers a useful caveat regarding aspectual vagueness, in that it may be regarded as a legitimate category when applied to the auxiliaries of periphrastic constructions. This, according to Evans, arises from lexical rather than verbal semantics; Ibid. 223–24, 233.

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in Porter and Decker), to four aspects (perfective, imperfective, stative, future, as in McKay). The real debate is between those who subscribe to two aspects and those who subscribe to three (McKay is virtually the only serious proponent of four aspects, and for him the fourth is ‘anomalous’), with the socalled stative aspect being the point of contention. McKay and Porter argue that stative aspect is encoded by the perfect and pluperfect tense-forms, while others regard these as either perfective or imperfective. One of the aims of this book will be to determine the aspect of the perfect and pluperfect tenseforms. The obvious problem here, of course, is exactly how to do this, as the entire issue of how to determine a tense-form’s aspect is extremely precarious and fraught with methodological complexity. 5.1 Aspect and Aktionsart interactions One interesting methodological proposal is that put forward by Mark O’Brien, as he seeks to determine the aspect of the oft-neglected future tenseform.87 O’Brien acknowledges Fanning’s claim that particular aspects interact with particular Aktionsart values in order to produce predictable outcomes,88 thus his strategy ‘is to use these predictable patterns to isolate any consistency in the verbal aspect of future forms’.89 By starting with the predicted outcomes and the Aktionsart implicatures, he works backwards to uncover the aspectual value of the future forms. 5.2 Inductive analysis The greatest methodological challenge in aspect studies is how to proceed inductively. Deductive approaches are easier to conduct, but they can result in artificial and sometimes spurious conclusions. For example, in determining the aspect of the perfect tense-form, it is one thing to argue that it grammaticalizes stative aspect, but it is another thing to demonstrate this inductively. Once stative aspect is assumed, one may cite several examples of how to translate the perfect statively, and while this may or may not be ––––––– 87 88

89

O’Brien, ‘Future’. Breu makes the same claim; ‘The grammatical meaning of the verbal aspect interacts with the lexical meaning of a given verb in group-specific ways, so that the kind of interaction in the case of a given aspect opposition can be used to classify verbs.’ Breu, ‘Lexical, Temporal and Aspectual Meanings’, 23. O’Brien, ‘Future’, 23.

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

accurate, it amounts to little more than eisegesis. Thus, an inductive approach is preferable, from which the aspect of the perfect may be recognized from the patterns evident within text rather than imposed upon it deductively. The approach suggested by O’Brien (above) is one possible way forward. However, this will only be part of the solution as it deals with the characteristics of individual verbs and not of larger discourse units. While analysis of the micro features of text is important, the approach of this book will proceed from a macro viewpoint as well. The texts under investigation have been scrutinized for discernable patterns of usage, such as whether the perfect is used consistently in direct discourse, for example. Specifically, every indicative verb form has been examined and the results presented statistically. While statistical studies have recognized limitations, they are used here merely to indicate trends. From these macro-pragmatics, it will be necessary to explain the extant phenomena in terms of semantics. Even here it will not be possible to prove a model of the aspectual network; rather the aim will be to present a model that best explains the phenomena. In this way, it is hoped that a genuinely inductive approach that pays due attention to context will be preserved.90 5.3 Aspectual context The term aspectual context is coined above and has relevance for determining aspect. If it is possible to discern the aspectual context of some clauses, sentences, or discourse strands, then it may also be possible to predict in which contexts the perfect and pluperfect tense-forms regularly occur. If it becomes evident that these tense-forms regularly occur in certain aspectual contexts, then it may be reasonable to conclude that they contribute to these contexts by sharing the aspectual value already expressed in the clause, sentence, or discourse strand. 6. Limitation of sources One of the difficulties that discussions about aspect have encountered is the preponderance of generalizations together with the quotation of supporting examples sometimes taken from data as far-reaching as from Homer to the ––––––– 90

McKay often warns of the importance of context in aspectology; see McKay, ‘NT Greek’, 290.

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New Testament. It is fine to argue, as McKay does, that a particular characteristic of the verbal network is not only extant but is so over a very large timeframe, but such claims actually become very difficult to validate for the same reason that they are useful: they are enormously wide-ranging. To quote, say, half-a-dozen examples scattered over a thousand years can only demonstrate so much after all. A useful development is evident in Decker’s work that concentrates on The Gospel of Mark. In some ways, Mark is really just a way into his analysis, but this limitation makes certain things possible that have otherwise been impossible. First, one is able to quote accurate statistics, so that as far as a particular text goes, this never happens, or such always occurs, for example. Second, when limited to a particular text, one is able to look closely at the phenomena under examination—something that is rarely possible when surveying very large sections of the corpora. Third, such limitations enable sensitivity to the issues of idiolect; the characteristics of a particular author may readily be recognized, which is surely of benefit when attempting to elucidate which characteristics are universal and which are not.91 As such, fourth, idiolect provides the potential to recognize characteristic patterns of interest to discourse analysis. Limitation, however, obviously has disadvantages too. Decker recognizes that his analysis ‘forbids generalizing the conclusions of the study to other genres’.92 More than that, he is not able to generalize his conclusions into non-biblical Koine usage, let alone beyond Koine Greek. This disadvantage is one that Decker must of course realize, yet is an unfortunate consequence spawned from the desire to achieve the kind of accuracy enabled by limitation. The approach adopted here has been to limit the sources, like Decker, but in a way that attempts to minimize the disadvantages of such limitation. The study focuses on The Gospel of Luke, though other texts are examined also in order to provide testing of the Lukan results across different registers, nonbiblical Koine, and Attic Greek. The first of these other texts is The Gospel of John. John provides an important test since it is widely regarded as employing a low register of ––––––– 91

92

See Moisés Silva, ‘A Response to Fanning and Porter on Verbal Aspect’, in Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research (ed. Stanley E. Porter and D. A. Carson; JSNTS 80; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 79. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 3–4.

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Greek, unlike Luke, which is regarded as exhibiting one of the most sophisticated styles of Greek in the New Testament, with the closest resemblance to Attic. Second is Vita Aesopi G. The Life of Aesop is a work of around the second century A.D., and is therefore roughly contemporary with the Gospels, and exhibits a lower register of Greek, akin to that of John’s Gospel. Vita Aesopi G is also a (comic) biographical narrative text, and thus in some ways parallel to the biographical narrative texts about Jesus found in Luke and John. Third, book 1 of The Story of Callirhoe, by Chariton, is examined and provides an example of a first century novel written in educated Koine.93 Fourth, narrative sections94 taken from documentary papyri from The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are examined,95 which also represents ––––––– 93

94 95

Incidentally, for an interesting stylistic comparison of Chariton and John, see Derek Tovey, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTS 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 213–20. A narrative section is an embedded narrative in an otherwise non-narrative text. P.Oxy. I 33 (late second century A.D., interview); 124 (third century A.D., schoolboy’s exercise); III 475, lines 16–25 (A.D. 182, report); 486, lines 3–19 (A.D. 131, petition); V 840 (c. A.D. 200?, uncanonical gospel); VII 1068, lines 3–17 (third century A.D., letter); XII 1408, lines 1–10 (c. A.D. 210–214, report); 1468, lines 17–35 (c. A.D. 258, petition); XVI 1886, lines 3–11 (late fifth or early sixth century A.D., petition); XVII 2110 (A.D. 370, proceedings); 2133, lines 8–18 (late third century A.D., petition); XVIII 2187, lines 6–10 (A.D. 304, petition); XXII 2340 (A.D. 192, judicial proceedings); 2341 (A.D. 208, judicial proceedings); 2342, lines 1–11, 17–26 (A.D. 102, petition); XXVII 2473, lines 1–29 (11 September A.D. 229, petition); XXXI 2562, lines 1–11 (after A.D. 330, report); XXXIII 2667, lines 1–12 (22 June A.D. 309, official correspondence); XXXVI 2758, lines 1–12 (c. A.D. 110–112, petition); XXXVIII 2853, lines 1–8 (c. A.D. 245–246, petition); XLIII 3094, lines 6–36 (c. A.D. 217–218, letter); 3117, lines 1–14 (third century A.D., court proceedings); 3126, lines 1–13 (19 August A.D. 328, petition); XLVI 3304, lines 13–18 (6 June A.D. 301, affidavit); XLVIII 3393, lines 5–15 (8 June A.D. 365, petition); 3394, lines 6–11 (A.D. 364–366?, petition); 3400, lines 1–13 (c. A.D. 359–365, letter); 3409, lines 1–11 (fourth century A.D., letter); XLIX 3466, lines 1–17 (A.D. 81–96, petition); 3467, lines 1– 15 (2 September A.D. 98, petition); 3469, lines 1–18 (first century A.D., official letter); 3480, lines 1–23 (c. A.D. 360–390, petition); L 3555, lines 10–28 (first/second century A.D., petition); 3561, lines 7–15 (c. January/February A.D. 165, petition); 3574, lines 1–12 (c. A.D. 314–318, petition); LI 3627 (late fourth century? A.D., judicial proceedings); LIV 3770, lines 1–11 (26 March A.D. 334, petition); 3771 (1 May A.D. 336, petition); LV 3820, lines 1–19 (c. A.D. 340?, letter); LVIII 3916 (16 February–28 August A.D. 60, petition); 3926, lines 1–15 (9 February A.D. 246, petition); LXI 4126, lines 1–9 (third/fourth century A.D., letter); LXII 4582, lines 10–21 (14–27 September A.D. 16, petition). I exclude from the count restored forms, unless original word elements that identify the forms have been preserved.

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wider Koine Greek. Fifth, testing is conducted across forty-one chapters of The Peloponnesian War (1.89–118, 128–38), by Thucydides, thus providing an example written in Attic Greek. Sixth, a narrative section taken from Against Eratosthenes (Lysias 12.4–21), a speech written by Lysias, is examined, which provides a subsidiary Attic example. These six extra documents do not completely resolve the problems inherent in limitation, but it is hoped that they will at least make this present discussion more widely useful.96 7. Conclusion This chapter has addressed the methodological issues relevant to the rest of the book. Aspect is defined as viewpoint, and Aktionsart as procedural characteristics. Discourse analysis is the discipline that seeks to evaluate how texts function and convey meaning. The terms foreground and background will be used according to Hopper’s schema rather than Porter’s, and remoteness is defined in terms of spatial distance, though it can include remote time. In terms of linguistic models, a functional systemic approach is adopted rather than a formal generative approach. A decision is made in favour of equipollent rather than privative aspectual oppositions. The common position that aspect is grammatically encoded in verbal forms, rather than in the sentence, is adopted, though with the suggestion that aspect may indeed be expressed by particular clauses, sentences, or discourse-units if verbal forms that encode a particular aspect are found clustered together. The principle of cancelability is regarded as a useful tool for distinguishing semantic values from pragmatic implicature, with aspect being regarded as a series of semantic verbal values and Aktionsart as a series of pragmatic implicatures. As for the task of determining what the semantic aspectual values actually are in particular verbal forms, the interaction between aspect and Aktionsart is proposed as a way forward, as is the recognition of aspectual contexts, with ––––––– 96

Due to limitations of space, the data collected from these sources does not take into account textual variants, which, of course, have potential to alter the statistics presented. Slight variations to statistics would not undermine the overall conclusions arrived at in this book as the data is utilized primarily in order to indicate overarching trends. However, the interplay between aspect and variant readings is an area of potential interest; see Peter Stork, ‘Aspectual Variant Readings in Herodotus’, in In the Footsteps of Raphael Kuhner (ed. A. Rijksbaron, H. A. Mulder, and G. C. Wakker; Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988), 265–89.

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the overall goal of achieving an inductive rather than deductive analysis. Finally, an explanation for the proposed limitations in the sources examined here is provided.

CHAPTER TWO The Present Tense-form

1. Introduction In this chapter, the semantic value of the present indicative tense-form is investigated, as is the usage of this form in narrative texts. Since the most discussed characteristic of the present indicative is its appearance in pastreferring contexts, there is an extended discussion on the historical present, how it is used in text, and how the semantic value of the present accounts for this phenomenon. First, while the semantic value of imperfective aspect is an element of the present indicative upon which all agree, it is necessary to define this aspect precisely. Second, the source texts adopted in this book, Luke, John, Vita Aesopi G, Chariton’s Callirhoe book 1, selected Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Thucydides 1.89–118, 128–38, and Lysias’ Against Eratosthenes, are examined for patterns of usage of the present tense-form. Once these patterns are recognized, a theory is postulated as to how the semantic value of this tense-form perpetuates such macro-patterns. The second half of this chapter is given to the debate concerning the historical present. The four main theories regarding the phenomenon are explored and tested against the evidence, and our postulated theory regarding semantic value and its patterned expression is shown to have considerable power of explanation. 2. Aspectual value The imperfective aspectual value of the present tense-form in the Greek of the New Testament is uncontested in recent literature; it is one of the few areas in which there is complete agreement. Porter summarizes: ‘imperfective aspect is the meaning of the present tense […]: the action is conceived of by the language user as being in progress. In other words, its internal structure is seen as

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unfolding.’1 Fanning concurs: ‘The present reflects an internal viewpoint [imperfective aspect] concerning the occurrence which focuses on its development or progress and sees the occurrence in regard to its internal make-up, without beginning or end in view.’2 There appears to be little reason to challenge this consensus, thus the imperfective aspectual value of the present tense-form is assumed. Imperfective aspect is defined in chapter one as an internal viewpoint. While there is a tendency in some quarters to describe this internal viewpoint in terms of internal temporal relations, imperfective aspect is here understood apart from reference to temporal considerations. I am not, at this point, addressing the issue of tense, but simply the definition of imperfective aspect. Comrie’s now standard definition of imperfective aspect as ‘the internal temporal structure of a situation’3 is not adopted here, as the reference to temporality is potentially misleading, especially as we distinguish aspect from tense. While Comrie’s approach has its own logic, defining aspect in terms of internal time-values, as opposed to the external time-values of tense, it is more useful to avoid temporal descriptions of aspect altogether. Rather, aspect is here regarded as a spatial phenomenon. As Fanning helpfully observes, ‘[the] relationship between the action and the reference-point from which it is viewed is not primarily a chronological one, even though it can produce that effect. If the relationship must be pictured in any dimension, a spatial one fits better, since the distinction is one of proximity vs. distance’.4 ––––––– 1 2 3

4

Porter, Idioms, 21 [italics are original]; Porter, Verbal Aspect, 91. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 103 [italics are original]. See also Olsen, Aspect, 202. Bernard Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 24. Olsen is heavily dependent upon Comrie’s temporal-relational definition of aspect; Olsen, Aspect, 62 ff. It is noteworthy that Fanning here makes reference to ‘distance’, while the term remoteness is championed by Porter; Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 27. While the above definition of imperfective aspect is here adopted, a third alternative may be acknowledged. Voelz proposes that ‘aspect relates to the focus the speaker has when considering an activity, namely whether his focus is upon the act itself (= aorist) or upon a perceived relationship between the activity and the doer of the activity, particularly a close relationship or connection (= present). According to this analysis, the use of the so-called “aorist” stem allows the speaker to focus—from the speaker’s own standpoint or point of view—upon an activity and what someone did, does, is to do, etc., while the so-called “present” stem allows that same speaker to focus (according to perception or point of view) upon the relationship or connection between the activity and the doer and to depict it as part of him, or to depict him as intimately involved and concerned with it.’ Voelz, ‘Proposal’, 159–60 [italics are original]. While this definition of imperfective aspect is to be rejected on the grounds that it bears no

CHAPTER TWO: THE PRESENT TENSE-FORM

37

It is assumed that imperfective aspect is a semantic value encoded in the present tense-form and is therefore an uncancelable feature of the verb (see chapter one, §§ 2.1, 4.1). The semantic value of imperfectivity finds pragmatic expression in a variety of ways, which are defined in chapter one as Aktionsarten (§ 2.2). The burden of this chapter is not to explore the variety of Aktionsarten that are given expression by the present tense-form; this has been done repeatedly in other contexts.5 Indeed the preponderance of discussion regarding the present tense-form could be classified as study of Aktionsarten. Rather, the burden here is to examine the semantic value of the present tense-form and its role in wider discourse-structure—a matter receiving attention only in relatively recent research. The imperfect indicative also encodes imperfective aspect. An important question is what it is that distinguishes these two imperfective tense-forms, the present and imperfect. Traditional analysis has ascribed present temporality to the present tense-form, and past temporality to the imperfect tense-form, and this difference in tense is seen as the distinguishing feature between the two. While the understanding that tense is a semantic value has come under recent serious attack, many exponents still hold to this temporal distinction between present and imperfect. Chapter one, however, elucidated the reasons for which a spatial distinction is here adopted, rather than tense, as the distinguishing feature between present and imperfect forms. It will be demonstrated in this chapter that the spatial category of proximity has greater explanatory power compared to tense when evaluating the discourse functions of the present tense-form. We now turn to our source texts to investigate the usage of the present indicative. 3. Present usage and function 3.1 Luke Even a cursory glance at the distribution of the present tense-form in Luke reveals that its key function is within discourse. Of the 631 presents in Luke,

5

resemblance to our understanding of what aspect actually is, the concept expressed by Voelz has relevance to the function of proximity with imperfective aspect (explored below in § 4). For a recent treatment of Aktionsarten such as instantaneous present, progressive present, extendingfrom-past present, iterative present, customary present, gnomic present, and conative present, see Wallace, Grammar, 513–39.

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608 occur in direct discourse, representing 96.3 percent of the total usage.6 A few examples will suffice. Luke 2:10 kai. ei=pen auvtoi/j o` a;ggeloj\ mh. fobei/sqe( ivdou. ga.r euvaggeli,zomai u`mi/n cara.n mega,lhn h[tij e;stai panti. tw/| law/| And the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.’7 Luke 5:30 kai. evgo,gguzon oi` Farisai/oi kai. oi` grammatei/j auvtw/n pro.j tou.j maqhta.j auvtou/ le,gontej\ dia. ti, meta. tw/n telwnw/n kai. a`martwlw/n evsqi,ete kai. pi,neteÈ And the Pharisees and their scribes were grumbling at his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ Luke 20:21 kai. evphrw,thsan auvto.n le,gontej\ dida,skale( oi;damen o[ti ovrqw/j le,geij kai. dida,skeij kai. ouv lamba,neij pro,swpon( avllV evpV avlhqei,aj th.n o`do.n tou/ qeou/ dida,skeij\ So they questioned him, ‘Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show8 no partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth.’ Of the 23 present tense-forms not in direct discourse, 9 occur within indirect discourse.9 These are found in Luke 6:7; 7:37; 9:33; 17:20; 18:9; 19:3, 11; 22:24; 23:6. Two examples will suffice. Luke 7:37 kai. ivdou. gunh. h[tij h=n evn th/| po,lei a`martwlo,j( kai. evpignou/sa o[ti kata,keitai evn th/| oivki,a| tou/ Farisai,ou( komi,sasa avla,bastron mu,rou ––––––– 6

7 8 9

Statistics for New Testament texts are based on searches conducted with the software tool BibleWorks 6.0, using the GNT database, which is an electronic version of the NestleAland 27th Edition of the Greek New Testament. In the gathering of data, parables are regarded as narratives even though they are found within the direct speech of Jesus. This is because they are embedded narratives, with their own narrative sequences, characters, and discourse. They also display the characteristics of normal narrative in their verbal usage. Discourse occurring within parables, however, is still regarded as discourse. Translations throughout this book are my own unless otherwise stated. The idiom is literally ‘you do not receive face’, meaning to show favouritism. The definition of indirect discourse adopted here is ‘a recasting of an original saying or thought into a reported form’, though ‘in many instances there is no original statement that needs to be recast’. Wallace, Grammar, 456 [italics are original].

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A woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating10 in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment… Luke 19:3 kai. evzh,tei ivdei/n to.n VIhsou/n ti,j evstin kai. ouvk hvdu,nato avpo. tou/ o;clou( o[ti th/| h`liki,a| mikro.j h=nÅ He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he could not because of the crowd, since he was short. When these 9 presents in indirect discourse are included with those found in direct discourse, we see that 97.8 percent of presents occur in discourse, either direct or indirect. Thus, the present is almost exclusively a discourse tense-form in Luke. There are, then, only 14 present indicative tense-forms in Luke that do not occur in discourse. It is worth looking at each of these in order to ascertain any patterns they may attest. Luke 2:4 VAne,bh de. kai. VIwsh.f avpo. th/j Galilai,aj evk po,lewj Nazare.q eivj th.n VIoudai,an eivj po,lin Daui.d h[tij kalei/tai Bhqle,em( dia. to. ei=nai auvto.n evx oi;kou kai. patria/j Daui,d Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he belonged to the house and family of David. Luke 7:40 kai. avpokriqei.j o` VIhsou/j ei=pen pro.j auvto,n\ Si,mwn( e;cw soi, ti eivpei/nÅ o` de,\ dida,skale( eivpe,( fhsi,nÅ Jesus answered him, ‘Simon, I have something to tell you.’ And he said, ‘Tell me, Teacher.’ Luke 8:26 Kai. kate,pleusan eivj th.n cw,ran tw/n Gerashnw/n( h[tij evsti.n avntipe,ra th/j Galilai,ajÅ Then they sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. Luke 8:49 :Eti auvtou/ lalou/ntoj e;rcetai, tij para. tou/ avrcisunagw,gou le,gwn o[ti te,qnhken h` quga,thr sou\ mhke,ti sku,lle to.n dida,skalonÅ While he was still speaking, someone came from the ruler’s house and said, ‘Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any longer.’ ––––––– 10

The idiom is literally ‘he lies down’, referring to his reclining at the Pharisee’s table for a meal.

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Luke 11:37 VEn de. tw/| lalh/sai evrwta/| auvto.n Farisai/oj o[pwj avristh,sh| parV auvtw/|\ eivselqw.n de. avne,pesenÅ While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him, so he went in and sat down. Luke 11:45 VApokriqei.j de, tij tw/n nomikw/n le,gei auvtw/|\ dida,skale( tau/ta le,gwn kai. h`ma/j u`bri,zeijÅ One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things you insult us also.’ Luke 13:8 o` de. avpokriqei.j le,gei auvtw/\| ku,rie( a;fej auvth.n kai. tou/to to. e;toj( e[wj o[tou ska,yw peri. auvth.n kai. ba,lw ko,pria He answered him, ‘Sir, leave it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.’ Luke 16:7 e;peita e`te,rw| ei=pen\ su. de. po,son ovfei,leijÈ o` de. ei=pen\ e`kato.n ko,rouj si,touÅ le,gei auvtw/\| de,xai sou ta. gra,mmata kai. gra,yon ovgdoh,kontaÅ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and make it eighty.’ Luke 16:23 kai. evn tw/| a[|dh| evpa,raj tou.j ovfqalmou.j auvtou/( u`pa,rcwn evn basa,noij( o`ra/| VAbraa.m avpo. makro,qen kai. La,zaron evn toi/j ko,lpoij auvtou/Å In Hades, being in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. Luke 16:29 le,gei de. VAbraa,m\ e;cousi Mwu?se,a kai. tou.j profh,taj\ avkousa,twsan auvtw/nÅ Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ Luke 17:37 kai. avpokriqe,ntej le,gousin auvtw/|\ pou/( ku,rieÈ o` de. ei=pen auvtoi/j\ o[pou to. sw/ma( evkei/ kai. oi` avetoi. evpisunacqh,sontaiÅ They said to him, ‘Where, Lord?’ He replied, ‘Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.’ Luke 19:22 le,gei auvtw/|\ evk tou/ sto,mato,j sou krinw/ se( ponhre. dou/leÅ h;|deij o[ti evgw. a;nqrwpoj auvsthro,j eivmi( ai;rwn o] ouvk e;qhka kai. qeri,zwn o] ouvk e;speiraÈ

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He said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! Did you know that I am a hard man, taking what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow?’ Luke 24:12 ~O de. Pe,troj avnasta.j e;dramen evpi. to. mnhmei/on kai. paraku,yaj ble,pei ta. ovqo,nia mo,na( kai. avph/lqen pro.j e`auto.n qauma,zwn to. gegono,jÅ But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went wandering what had happened. Luke 24:36 Tau/ta de. auvtw/n lalou,ntwn auvto.j e;sth evn me,sw| auvtw/n kai. le,gei auvtoi/j\ eivrh,nh u`mi/nÅ While they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’ The pattern that is immediately obvious here is that the majority of these present tense-forms introduce discourse. The verb le,gw accounts for 7 of these 14 cases (11:45; 13:8; 16:7, 29; 17:37; 19:22; 24:36), and fhmi, accounts for another one (7:40), all of which introduce direct discourse. Three of the remaining 6 cases are the verbs evrwta,w (11:37), o`ra,w (16:23), and ble,pw (24:12), all of which introduce indirect discourse. It simply must be significant that of those present indicatives that do not occur in discourse, 11 of those 14 introduce discourse. We can, therefore, conclude that only 3 present indicatives in the whole of Luke are not connected in some way to discourse.11 3.2 John In John, 826 present indicatives occur in direct discourse, out of a total of 1035 presents. This represents 79.8 percent of present indicatives. Of the 209 present indicatives not in direct discourse, 31 occur within indirect discourse, thus 82.8 percent occur in discourse, either direct or indirect. Of the 178 present indicatives not in discourse, 116 are occurrences of le,gw, 3 are avpokri,nomai, and one is fhmi,, all introducing direct discourse. A further 14 present indicatives not in discourse are used to introduce indirect discourse, a translation or an Old Testament citation. This usage shows strong similarities to Luke, but it is necessary to investigate the remaining present indicatives ––––––– 11

Two of these instances (Lk. 8:26 and 8:49), involve the verb ‘to be’ [h[tij evsti.n avntipe,ra th/j Galilai,aj], and a verb of motion [e;rcetai, tij para. tou/ avrcisunagw,gou]. The latter example is dealt with in § 5.5.1 of this chapter; the former is part of a narrative explanation, as is the third instance in Lk. 2:4 (see § 3.5 below).

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that are not accounted for in quite the same manner. Of the remaining present indicatives outside discourse, the verb eu`ri,skw occurs 4 times (1:41, 43, 45; 5:14). Each of these occurrences is found in direct connection with le,gw as it introduces discourse (three times le,gw is present; the fourth is aorist), thus also demonstrating a connection to discourse, even if somewhat tenuous. A further 9 present indicatives may be accommodated with the recognition of a special type of discourse. Parts of John’s Gospel are clearly not narrative proper nor direct or indirect discourse. An example is found in John 20:30–31. John 20:30–31 Polla. me.n ou=n kai. a;lla shmei/a evpoi,hsen o` vIhsou/j evnw,pion tw/n maqhtw/n [auvtou/], a] ouvk e;stin gegramme,na evn tw/| bibli,w| tou,tw|\ tau/ta de. ge,graptai i[na pisteu,[s]hte o[ti vIhsou/j evstin o` cristo.j o` ui`o.j tou/ qeou/, kai. i[na pisteu,ontej zwh.n e;chte evn tw/| ovno,mati auvtou/. Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Noteworthy here is the manner in which the book draws attention to itself (‘in this book’, ‘these are written’), and addresses the reader directly (‘so that you may believe’). Evidently, the author is addressing or speaking to his reader. This kind of discourse is not found in the speech or thought of one of the narrative text’s characters, so strictly speaking is not direct or indirect discourse, but since it is a kind of speaking, I will refer to this as authorial discourse. John is relatively fond of authorial discourse, employing it at least four times in his Gospel, compared to Luke who does not employ it all. The three other occurrences of authorial discourse in John are found in 19:35, 21:24–25 and 1:1–18. The first verse mentions an eyewitness who is (probably) the author, with the intent that the reader may believe. The second passage again displays the author making reference to himself and his Gospel. The third passage is the prologue of John’s Gospel, which displays exposition-like theological discourse. In fact, it could even be labeled exposition, along the lines of John’s epistles in the New Testament. For the sake of simplicity, however, we may regard exposition itself as a form of (authorial) discourse, in the sense that the author is directly addressing his reader, whether it be for the purpose of instruction, teaching, or personal correspondence. The discourse nature of authorial discourse is supported by

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the fact that these sections contain several present indicatives. There are 3 in the Prologue (1:5, 9, 15), 1 in 19:35, 1 in 20:31, and 4 in 21:24–25. When authorial discourse is taken into account as a form of discourse, the present indicatives that are in discourse, or are somehow related to discourse, account for 97 percent of presents in John. There is one further category of present indicative distribution attested in John. Of the 30 remaining present indicatives, 26 are verbs of motion. The verbs e;rcomai (14 times), a;gw (3 times), u`pa,gw (2 times), evgei,rw, tre,cw, ti,qhmi, ba,llw, neu,w, lamba,nw, di,dwmi are found outside discourse and in the present indicative. The fact that these verbs account for nearly all the present indicatives that bear no relation to discourse indicates the validity of this new category. We shall explore the significance of the presents of motion below. The 4 remaining present indicatives are found in narrative explanations, three of which are eivmi, (1:19; 5:2; 19:40); the fourth is sugcra,omai (4:9).12 3.3 Vita Aesopi G Vita Aesopi G attests 500 present indicatives in direct discourse out of 769 presents in the entire work. There are a further 14 presents in indirect discourse, and 2 in authorial discourse, thus bringing the total number of present indicatives within discourse to 516, which represents 67.1 percent of the presents in Vita Aesopi G. This statistic appears far less impressive than Luke and John’s. However, there are 230 present indicatives that are used to introduce discourse in Vita Aesopi G, representing 29.9 percent of the total, ––––––– 12

Narrative explanation, or narrative commentary, is similar to authorial discourse in that the author is giving the reader information to help explain the narrative. This is here excluded from authorial discourse, however, as it does not portray the sense of the author addressing the reader in a direct manner; it merely provides information necessary to the understanding of the narrative, and is therefore supplemental in nature. This distinction between narrative commentary and authorial discourse is contra Fleischman, who regards narrative commentary as actual speech, and therefore collapses the two categories into one. The distinction is preserved here, however, in order to recognize the difference between those instances in which an author wishes to address the reader with an appeal, exhortation, or other such direct communication (as in authorial discourse), and the simple imparting of information that is relevant to one’s understanding of the narrative. See Suzanne Fleischman, ‘Toward a Theory of Tense-Aspect in Narrative Discourse’, in The Function of Tense in Texts (ed. Jadranka Gvozdanović and Theo. A. J. M. Janssen in collaboration with Östen Dahl; Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Verhandelingen, Afd. Letterkunds, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 144; Amsterdam, 1991), 94, n. 6.

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and when added to the 67.1 percent of presents within discourse, achieves an impressive 97 percent of presents associated with discourse, either within it or introducing it. Of the remaining 3 percent of present indicatives (23 out of 769) not associated with discourse in Vita Aesopi G, 12 are verbs of motion. These verbs are evpeise,rcomai, diai,rw, evpiti,qhmi, avrtodote,w, evxe,rcomai, evpidi,dwmi, eivsba,llw, ba,llw, fe,rw (twice), de,rw, and kaqe,zomai. The remaining verbs are hvce,w (twice), gi,nomai (3 times), a;rcomai (twice), avpoclwriai,nw, me,nw, paragi,gnomai, and eivmi,. 3.4 Chariton The first book of Chariton contains 123 present indicatives, of which 94 are within direct discourse, 5 within indirect discourse, and 4 within authorial discourse; thus, 83.7 percent of all present indicatives are within some kind of discourse. Of the remaining 20 presents, 19 introduce discourse, boosting the figure of presents associated with discourse to 99 percent. Indeed, there is only 1 present indicative in the sample of Chariton that is within narrative proper and unassociated with discourse. This is a verb of motion, eivstre,cw. 3.5 Oxyrhynchus Papyri The sample from the Oxyrhynchus collection attests 89 present indicatives, of which 78 are within discourse (76 direct; 2 indirect). Only 1 present is used to introduce discourse, contributing to the figure of 88.7 percent of presents being in some way associated with discourse. There are 10 present indicatives within narrative proper, of which only 1 employs a verb of motion, peripate,w. There is a second instance in which the verb, though not naturally a verb of motion, does seem to imply motion within its context. In this example, proskartere,w means to persist in attendance at a law-court. P.Oxy. III 486.8–9 (A.D. 131, petition) avkou,saj Klau,dioj Kuintiano.j [o` geno,me]noj evpistra,thgoj [u`]pere,qeto evpi. to.n kra,tiston [h`g]emo,na. kavigw. me.n e;k[t]ote proskarterw/ tw|/ [t]ou/ h`gemo,noj bh,mati Claudius Quintianus, who was epistrategus, heard the case and referred it to his highness the praefect. At that point I attended at the praefect’s court…

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Within the context, however, it is not the persisting in attendance that is significant, but rather that the subject had left the epistrategus, who had referred the case to the praefect, and thereupon attended at the praefect’s court. The transition from the epistrategus’ court to that of the praefect is the action that is most pertinent here. Hence, in this case, proskartere,w is functioning as though it is a verb of motion. The 8 remaining present indicatives that are outside discourse appear to function along the lines of narrative explanation, the verbs being e;cw (twice), eivmi, (twice), katagei,nomai, perie,cw, crhmati,zw, and marture,w. The nature of the papyri seems to contribute to the relatively high frequency of this phenomenon, since the selected fragments are not, by nature, narrative texts, but rather contain narrative sections. As such, we witness the occasional dropping out of narrative into comment or explanation that may connect the narrative section to the time of writing, or is simply a reversion back to expositional or epistolary writing in the midst of the recounting of a story. The following examples demonstrate this. P.Oxy. XLVI 3304.13–15 (6 June A.D. 301, affidavit) gegenh/s[qa]i pro.j th.n auvtou/ su,mbion Auvrhli,an Qermou,qion kai. evxhpathke,nai auvth.n kai. h]n e;cei o;non qhlei/an leukh.n pw/lon w`j pro.j crh/sin evschke,nai …he got access to his wife, Aurelia Thermuthion, and deceived her, and on the pretext of a loan got the donkey which she owns, a white female foal… P.Oxy. L 3561.7–8 (c. January/February A.D. 165, petition) evcqe.j h[tij evsti.n ib tou/ o;ntoj mhno.j evph/lqa,n moi, Yesterday, which is the twelfth of the present month, they attacked me… In both examples, comment is made that elucidates the narrative sections and relates them to the time of writing; the implication of the first example is that Aurelia Thermuthion does still own the foal at the time of writing; similarly, in the second example, the giving of the date of the attack is done in relation to the time to writing—it happened on the twelfth of the present month. This connection between the narrative sections being recounted and the situation in which they are written is similar to the effect created by authorial discourse (see n. 12 above), and also similar to the supplemental function of the imperfect indicative (to be explored in chapter three). Nevertheless, the relatively rare narratival comment differs from both. Narratival comment lacks the force and deliberate directness of authorial discourse, which is

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employed when the author wants to address the reader. It also differs from the more usual supplemental function of the imperfect indicative in that it relates the information to the situation or time of writing, while the imperfect function does not; its supplemental information relates to the narrative proper, and facilitates understanding of the narrative proper, without necessarily making any connection to the situation or condition in which the narrative text was written. 3.6 Thucydides Our forty-one chapters of Thucydides attest, out of 84 present indicatives, 14 in direct discourse, 20 in indirect discourse, and 8 in authorial discourse; thus, 50 percent of present indicatives occur in some kind of discourse. There are a further 11 presents introducing discourse, raising the percentage of present indicatives that are associated with discourse to 63.1 percent. These statistics seem to mark a significant divergence from the pattern established with the previous documents, with 36.9 percent of present indicatives in narrative proper and unassociated with discourse. The test as to whether this is a genuine divergence, or merely a shift in proportions, will be to examine the narrative present forms. The present tense-forms that are not related to discourse in the sample of Thucydides are avposte,llw (3 times), pe,mpw (4 times), avpolu,w, evkpe,mpw, kale,w, gi,gnomai (4 times), avfikne,omai (3 times), diafqei,rw, eivmi, (twice), evpiti,qhmi, avpope,mpw, evspi,ptw (eivspi,ptw), lu,w, evxa,gw, feu,gw, diakomi,zw, avnagka,zw, avni,sthmi, evkdi,dwmi, and evspe,mpw (eivspe,mpw). Apart from eivmi,, gi,gnomai, diafqei,rw, and kale,w, it is arguable that these verbs are all verbs of motion.13 We see that the types of motion that these verbs exemplify include moving from one place to another, sending someone or something somewhere, letting something loose, arriving at a destination, placing something, passing things to another, going out, carrying over, compelling something or someone, and rising up. Appreciating the nuances here may lead us to refine the label, verbs of motion, to a more precise delineation. Perhaps the term propulsion is better; the sense of propulsion is more accommodating of the nuances here than is motion. For example, to let ––––––– 13

Similar patterns have been found elsewhere; in the Septuagintal Kingdom books, verbs of motion constitute the greatest proportion of historical presents; Ronald Lowell Shive, ‘The Use of the Historical Present and its Theological Significance’ (M.Th. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1982), 4.

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something loose is not just a motion; it is propelling an object away from its lodging, just as sending someone involves the propulsion of a person. Furthermore, propulsion can also explain one’s own going and coming in that one may propel oneself toward a destination or away from a starting point; since propulsion may also refer simply to an impelling influence or motive power,14 coming and going are surely accommodated by the term. This new category may be accommodated within the now classic Vendlerian taxonomy of verbal types. Vendler differentiated between stative verbs, which are temporally unbounded; activities, which are also temporally ongoing, but are set apart from statives by certain distinctions; accomplishments, which are durative yet also temporally bounded; and achievements, which are also temporally bounded, but occur instantaneously, with slight or nil duration.15 Verbs of propulsion fit within the Vendlerian classes of either activities or accomplishments, depending on their context. If it may be supposed that this category of propulsion is rather too broad to be of much use when defining the lexemes that are employed as historical presents, it is worth noting that Vendler’s categories of stative and achievement verbs are exluded from propulsion. If we define the verbs found here in Thucydides in terms of propulsion, it may be that we can also accommodate the verb diafqei,rw, which is excluded by the term motion. The activity of slaying someone or destroying something may be understood in terms of bringing one to their death, or dashing an object into ruin. The thrusting sense of this verb can be more or less significant depending on its usage, but the example in Thucydides is found within a transitional context, thus enhancing the verb’s propulsive power: Thucydides 1.105.6 kai. oi` vAqhnai/oi evkbohqh,santej evk tw/n Mega,rwn tou,j te to. tropai/on i`sta,ntaj diafqei,rousi kai. toi/j a;lloij xumbalo,ntej evkra,thsan. Then the Athenians made a sally from Megara and slew those who were setting up the trophy, and joining battle with the others, defeated them.

––––––– 14

15

Judy Pearsall and Bill Trumble (eds.), Oxford English Reference Dictionary (2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 1159. See Zeno Vendler, ‘Verbs and Times’, in Linguistics in Philosophy (ed. Zeno Vendler; New York: Cornell University Press, 1967), 97–121.

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Since diafqei,rw is set within this transitional scene, bracketed by evkbohqe,w and xumba,llw, it is clear that in this instance the slaying pictured by this verb is characterized by a kind of drive, or thrust; it invokes a compelling force. Thus, in this instance, diafqei,rw is suitably accommodated by the term propulsion. This general redefinition from motion to propulsion also easily accommodates the relevant verbs from the other source texts. Since most of the present indicatives unrelated to discourse in Thucydides are verbs of propulsion, as is the case in the other texts, it is concluded that the usage of the present indicative in this work differs from the others only on the level of distribution; the percentages of discoursepresents and propulsion-presents are differently apportioned, but the actual usage remains the same: the present tense-form is used either in connection with discourse or to convey propulsion when outside the scope of discourse. This, then, is a powerful pattern that is identifiable both within the New Testament and without, both within Koine and Attic Greek. 3.7 Lysias The speech from Lysias attests 15 present indicatives, of which 5 are found within discourse (4 direct; 1 indirect), with a further 3 functioning to introduce discourse, resulting in 53.3 percent being related to discourse. The 7 present indicatives found in narrative proper are paradi,dwmi, avnoi,gnumi, eivse,rcomai, evpitugca,nw, katalamba,nw (twice), and pe,pmw. Each of these verbs is comfortably accommodated within the category of propulsion. 4. Remoteness and proximity It is necessary to propose a theory to account for this pattern of behaviour of the present indicative in narrative texts. Let us begin by recognizing that traditional theories regarding the present tense-form struggle to explain the phenomena we have now observed. First, a tense-based understanding sheds little light as to why the present is so firmly connected to discourse. While it may be argued that present temporal reference explains this well, since direct discourse is reported as though the speaker is at that moment speaking, it nevertheless fails to explain the common phenomenon of those presents that introduce discourse, yet are actually themselves outside it. This is problematic, and introduces us to the vexed issue of the so-called historical

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present, which will be dealt with separately below.16 Second, a tense-based understanding offers no insight into the phenomenon of verbs of propulsion. There are various theories regarding the historical present in general, and its role in discourse analysis, prominence and so forth, but no insight into this particular usage. While the traditional theory regarding the present tense-form offers little explanatory power in relation to the discourse- and propulsion-presents, I suggest that a spatial understanding of the present tense-form provides a way forward.17 So far we have only briefly investigated the spatial notion, but we must now explore its wider consequences. Remoteness is a negative term that is used to distinguish the present from imperfect tense-forms; the imperfect is spatially more remote than the present.18 This tells us what the imperfect is in relation to the present, but it does not tell us how the present stands in its own right. While a systemic linguistic approach (see chapter one, § 3.1) requires us to view tense-forms in relation to their oppositions (i.e., present vs. imperfect), nevertheless it is necessary to have a positive value established from which to form an opposition, especially if we are committed to an equipollent system of oppositions, in which each member of an opposition has a positive value of its own.19 I propose the term proximity as the spatial opposition to remoteness. ––––––– 16

17

18

19

Furthermore, there are also several future-referring present indicatives that are not explained by traditional analyses. See Tony Pope, ‘The Use of the Present Indicative to Signal Future Time in New Testament Greek with Special Reference to the Gospel of John’, Occasional Papers in Translation and Text Linguistics 2 (1988), 27–38. Of the major contributors to the study of verbal aspect within New Testament Greek, a non-tense understanding of the present indicative is held by McKay, Porter, Olsen and Decker, while Fanning and Evans retain the traditional tense understanding, though for Fanning ‘The relative time-values are a secondary effect of the aspects in context rather than a feature central to what the aspects themselves denote’. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 28. While Olsen views present and aorist indicatives as ‘unspecified for tense’, the imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, and future tense-forms are ‘limited in temporal reference’; Olsen, Aspect, 201–2. Related to this is the meaning of the augment, an issue receiving serious treatment in Evans, Verbal Syntax, 49–50, which will be further investigated in chapter three. ‘Instead of contrasting present and past, now and then, remoteness contrasts this and that […]. The semantic value of a verb form involves aspect and remoteness, but the pragmatic value of a verb form in a specific context suggests that a speaker may select […] aspect and remoteness to describe a process in […] time’; Decker, Temporal Deixis, 107. As opposed to a privative system of oppositions. The ‘privative opposition is virtually meaningless when applied to the relatively simple bipolar Greek system. There were only

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If an author/speaker is able to depict verbal events and states as remote from him or herself, he or she is also able to depict verbal events and states as non-remote; that is, as being near to him or herself. This is the concept expressed by the term proximity. It is taken here to refer to ‘nearness in space, time’,20 and a verbal event or state may be depicted as more or less proximate from the viewpoint of the author/speaker. If spatial value is to be understood as the key distinction between the present and imperfect tense-forms (both being imperfective in aspect), then the present would be the more proximate of the two, while the imperfect would be the more remote of the two. A tensebased view implies this distinction temporally; the present conveys proximate time—the time is present; the imperfect conveys remote time—the time is past. However, a spatial distinction is able to accommodate both space and time, and this is the key to its greater power of explanation: verbal actions and states that are not always consistent with the supposed temporal values of the present and imperfect tense-forms can still be seen as consistent with their spatial values of proximity and remoteness respectively. Unlike perfectivity, imperfectivity lends itself to spatial distinctions of proximity and remoteness. Since a verbal event or state is viewed internally, or as unfolding before the author/speaker, the focus of the view may be directed at various points of the unfolding action or state. The oft-used illustration of the reporter and the street parade is helpful here. An imperfective event or state is equivalent to a street parade that is viewed by a reporter who is situated on the ground, witnessing the parade proceeding before him. He does not view the parade as a whole, from a perfective viewpoint, but sees the parade ‘from the inside’ as it unfolds before him. This commonly used illustration may be taken further in order to demonstrate the distinction of proximity and remoteness. An event or state that is depicted as proximate is equivalent to that part of the parade that is directly in front of the reporter. Not only is the parade unfolding before him, but there is a focus on the part of the parade that is closest to him. Conversely, an event or state that is depicted as remote is equivalent to that part of the parade that is not directly in front of him, but is further down the street; the reporter must look away from his immediate locale in order to view a remote section of the

20

two aspects, each with an equally valid function which may be defined equally precisely’; Lloyd, Anatomy, 84. Contra Olsen, Aspect, 19–21, 199–200, and Martín S. Ruipérez, ‘The Neutralization of Morphological Oppositions as Illustrated by the Neutral Aspect of the Present Indicative in Classical Greek’, Word 9 (1953), 242. Pearsall, Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 1164.

CHAPTER TWO: THE PRESENT TENSE-FORM parade. This is diagrammed below: Figure 1.1: Proximate imperfectivity

The unfolding event or state

The viewpoint

Figure 1.2: Remote imperfectivity

The unfolding event or state

The viewpoint

51

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

It must be remembered, as argued in chapter one, that viewpoint aspect has no necessary connection to reality; an author/speaker chooses to depict an event or state as perfective or imperfective depending on his or her communicative purposes, regardless of whether the event or state is ongoing at the time of writing/speaking or has ended some time before.21 The same notion is relevant to the proximity/remoteness distinction: an author/speaker chooses to depict an event or state as either proximate or remote, depending on his or her communicative purposes, regardless of whether the event or state is near or far from the author/speaker in reality. In terms of Greek, therefore, an author/speaker will choose either an aorist (perfective) or imperfect/present (imperfective), and, if having chosen the imperfective option, will also choose either an imperfect (remote) or present (proximate) tense-form, according to what is deemed an appropriate choice for the context and purpose. Returning to the question at hand, we have observed that it is deemed appropriate by each of our authors to depict verbs of propulsion both imperfectively and proximately (at least sometimes), hence the use of the present tense-form. To be sure, the same authors also choose imperfectiveremote and even perfective depictions of similar, if not the same, verbs of propulsion. But that is not the point; rather the point is that an imperfectiveproximate depiction is not deemed inappropriate, regardless of the timeframe of the reported action. The reason that such a choice is not inappropriate cannot be ascertained in any concrete way, but a postulation is possible. Conceivably, verbs of propulsion lend themselves to an imperfective-proximate depiction because they accentuate the movement from one position to another. With verbs of coming and going, giving and taking, sending, and rising, the accent is on the transition from one point to another, and this accent can be highlighted by an imperfective-proximate depiction. The highlighting of this transition from one point to another is achieved by depicting the action as in front of the author/speaker, and thereby causing the author/speaker to take account of such a transition in a more heightened way than is possible with an imperfective-remote depiction, as Figure 1.3 demonstrates. ––––––– 21

This is of course subject to the availability of both imperfective and perfective choices for any given verb; certain verbs do not provide this choice morphologically, thus eliminating the element of choice. This is not to deny the possibility, however, of verbal suppletion; for example, it is sometimes supposed that evgeno,mhn provides an aorist counterpart to eivmi, (see chapter one, § 4.2).

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Figure 1.3: Proximate imperfectivity and heightened transition Transition A

B

C

centre of reference

The viewpoint

Figure 1.3 demonstrates that an imperfective-proximate depiction of an action may heighten the sense of transition as the action moves from point A to C. The transition is heightened because, in moving from A to C, point B is crossed, which is the author/speaker’s centre of reference in his or her imperfective viewpoint. The author/speaker, in a sense, views the action as passing in front of him or her and moving from one side of point B to the other side of point B.22 This movement from A, past B, to C is the element that heightens the transition in verbs of propulsion. Whether or not this use of the present tense-form with verbs of propulsion results in a kind of prominence for these cases within the overall discourse-structure is a matter for later discussion. What may be concluded at this point, however, is that the transition inherent in verbs of propulsion is highlighted when used with the present tense-form. Thus a spatial understanding of the present tense-form provides grounds for at least one hypothesis to explain the phenomenon of verbs of propulsion in the present tense-form within narrative texts. Turning now to the dominant phenomenon of the discourse-relation of the present tense-form, it has been observed that it is deemed appropriate by our authors to convey direct, indirect, and authorial discourse by means of the present indicative. This is not to say that imperfects and aorists are not ––––––– 22

Stative lexemes do not experience the transition from point A to C, but may nevertheless be depicted with imperfective-proximity.

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used in discourse; indeed they are, as will be explored in subsequent chapters. Rather, the present is an appropriate choice for discourse, and it is so appropriate that this is the dominant use of the present indicative, with only its uses to introduce discourse and with verbs of propulsion providing alternatives. Discourse is itself a complex phenomenon within the Greek narrative genre. While we must be wary of over-simplification, it is necessary to understand how discourse fits within the overall genre of narrative, and indeed what relationship it bears to aspect and proximity/remoteness.23 It is widely observed that discourse has the effect of slowing down a narrative as the author pauses the sequence of events in order to relate what was said, thought, seen, or heard.24 This fact alone should alert us to the significance of discourse. The author could choose not to convey the discourse, by reporting simply that a conversation took place, and then proceed to the next event in the narrative sequence. But if he or she decides not to proceed immediately and rather to pause and convey the discourse itself, we must conclude that the discourse is of importance to the author.25 This pausing of the narrative sequence creates the effect of taking the reader inside the narrative, and unfolding the communication-event before the view of the reader.26 In other words, discourse must inherently form an imperfective context.27 Imperfective ––––––– 23 24 25

26

27

See Hopper, ‘Foregrounding’, 213–41. Lloyd, Anatomy, 83–84. In most languages, direct discourse gives more prominence to the context in which it is found than indirect discourse does; ‘Direct quotations are commonly used in sections which build up to a climax or in the climax itself.’ Iver Larson, ‘Quotations and Speech Introducers in Narrative Texts’, Notes on Translation 5/1 (1991), 55–56. With direct discourse, ‘the narrative framework replaces the situation of speaking as the central reference point—becoming the locus for time, place, and person indicators, as well as the arena in which speech acts are performed’; Deborah Schiffrin, ‘Tense Variation in Narrative’, Language 57/1 (1981), 58. Sentential aspect (that is, aspect expressed at the level of the sentence rather than by the morpheme alone) is recognized by many scholars as a key way in which aspect functions in certain languages. Aspectual context, on a wider macro-level, is an extension of this concept. See Ferenc Kiefer, ‘Some Peculiarities of the Aspectual System in Hungarian’, in BBL, 185; Orvokki Heinämäki, ‘Aspect as Boundedness in Finnish’, in BBL, 207–33. Lloyd moves toward the concept of aspectual context, using the term frame of reference: ‘the presentive [present tense-form] tends to slow down a narrative, since everything must be observed and reported in progress, as it unfolds; also, nothing is seen as a discrete total event, a significant change which affects the course of the narrative. For such a view the constative [aorist tense-form] is eminently suitable. On the other hand, by gaining an

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context is not a grammatical or semantic entity, in the manner in which imperfective verbal aspect is; rather it is a macro entity that allows the author to portray an entire situation internally rather than externally.28 Indeed, it could be supposed that the pausing of the narrative sequence and unfolding of the communication-event not only creates an imperfective context, but one that is more proximate than remote. This is a natural result of drawing the reader into the narrative to experience the unfolding of communication; the communication-event is presented to the reader as being immediately before their eyes.29 Recognizing the imperfective-proximate character of discourse raises the question as to how tense-forms relate to that context. This issue will be explored further in subsequent chapters, with reference to how the overall verbal network operates in narrative proper and discourse with all its various tense-form oppositions, but a few preliminary points are necessary here. First, an imperfective context does not demand that only imperfective verbs are employed within it. Any context, whether imperfective or perfective, discourse or narrative proper, requires the ability to oppose perfective and imperfective verb forms. Even though alternation between imperfectives and perfectives is necessary, however, this alternation does not affect the overall aspectual context. Though discourse may employ aorists, which are perfective, it still operates with the effect of drawing the reader inside the narrative and unfolding the communication-event before him or her, thus the discourse still forms an imperfective-proximate context on a macro level. If these assertions regarding discourse are accepted, it becomes immediately clear how the present tense-form relates to discourse. The way in which an imperfective-proximate context may impose itself on verbal distribution is by attracting verb forms that are able to convey both

28

29

overview of a complete action as a mere imprint, a dead shell, as it were, the dynamic quality of the report is lost. By a skillful combination of the two, it was possible to establish a frame of reference through the use of the presentive, then utilize the position of the observer outside that frame to report crucial events as accomplished facts.’ Lloyd, Anatomy, 83–84. It would not be controversial to assume that the opposite is also true, that narrative sequences form inherently perfective contexts, which explains the dominance of the narrative aorist (to be addressed in chapter four); events are portrayed in sequence and externally. The reader is not invited inside the narrative; events are reported rather than shared. Ibid. 83–84.

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imperfectivity and proximity. Given the above argumentation, this leads us directly to the present indicative, which encodes both imperfective aspect and the spatial value of proximity. This is the core reason that the present tenseform occurs predominantly within discourse: discourse creates an imperfective-proximate context and therefore attracts imperfective-proximate verbal forms, such as the present indicative. Moreover, this may also explain the usage of present indicatives to introduce discourse. The imperfectiveproximate context of the discourse spills over to the verb that introduces the discourse. The verb then serves as an aid to the transition from the perfective context of the narrative sequence to the imperfective-proximate context of the discourse.30 The shift into discourse clearly does not necessitate the use of the present, however, as it is also common for aorists to introduce discourse. Perhaps the best description at this stage is that of attraction; as the narrative anticipates the shift to discourse, the verb that introduces that discourse may attract a present rendering as the imperfective-proximity spills over. The data gathered earlier in this chapter concerning the use of the present indicative has revealed clear patterns of usage that require explanation. In this section a proposal has been put forward that attempts to explain these patterns with an aspectual-spatial understanding of the present tense-form. It has been argued that these patterns are explicable when the present tense-form is understood to encode the semantic values of imperfective aspect and proximity. While this theory is virtually impossible to prove (and to disprove), it offers significant explanatory power, and in the final analysis the model with the greatest power of explanation is the one that should be adopted. As suggested above, traditional understandings of the present indicative are not fully capable of explaining the data observed here.31 ––––––– 30

31

On the relationship between the ‘quotative frame’ and the ‘quotation’ in Hebrew, see Cynthia L. Miller, ‘Discourse Functions of Quotative Frames in Biblical Hebrew Narrative’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (ed. Walter R. Bodine; The Society of Biblical Literature: Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1995), 156–78. ‘The traditional explanation views the primary usage at the pragmatic level as the controlling feature for defining the semantics of the form, and this estimation is often absolute-tense based, while the explanation offered here looks to the essential semantic features as governing the range of pragmatic usage. From a theoretical standpoint alone, the latter is more satisfying, since it not only abides by a meaningful hierarchy, but it has greater explanatory power in its treatment of actual usage, with the fewest number of exceptional instances’; Porter, Verbal Aspect, 104.

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One phenomenon that has been the object of several attempts at explanation, however, is the historical present. We now turn to this controversial and vexed issue, which will provide further opportunity to explore the degree of explanatory power that the above theory can wield when compared to other explanations. 5. The historical present The most discussed feature of the Greek present indicative is overwhelmingly its appearances in past contexts. This is especially problematic for those who hold to a tense-based understanding of the present indicative, though recent aspectual analyses have not resolved the issue firmly either. A plethora of material is available on the subject, yet its function, purpose, and meaning are still not agreed upon. Much of the discussion focuses on The Gospel of Mark, so for the purposes of this discussion Mark is included among the source texts examined. The various theories and explanations regarding the historical present can be grouped into four broad categories. First, the traditional explanation of the historical present seeks to explain how a present-referring tense-form can appear in past-referring narrative in terms of vividness; much like its use in modern European languages, a present tense can be utilized to depict an event as though it is happening at the time of speaking/writing in order to make the narrative more vivid as it is relayed. Second, there is the theory regarding tense- or conjunction-reduction, which views the historical present as a zero-tense. The theory states that once a narrative sequence is begun by an aorist, it may be continued by an historical present, which at that point loses its semantic value and merely continues the aoristic sense already established. Third, more recent analyses have sought to establish a wider discourse function for the historical present. The historical present is used to mark the beginning of paragraphs or significant sections and pericopes within a narrative text. Fourth, a timeless aspectual theory has been proposed that finds no problem with the historical present, since it is not a present tense anyway.32 ––––––– 32

For a more unusual explanation of the historical present that does not fit into these four categories, see Nimrod Barri, ‘The Greek Historical Present in a Double Verbal System’, Linguistics 204 (1978), 43–56. Barri suggests that the present indicative exhibits a double verbal system, in which it operates as a present imperfective when found within discourse, and as a past perfective within narrative. Rodenbusch, however, observed years earlier

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5.1 The traditional view Ruipérez aptly expresses the traditional view on the historical present: ‘Fundamentalmente, el presente histórico resulta de una realización psicológica de la noción de tiempo presente […]. Acciones verbales pretéritas en la realidad externa aparecen como presentes al « yo » en la visión subjetiva de esa realidad.’33 Wallace provides a modern restatement of the traditional view: ‘The present tense may be used to describe a past event, either for the sake of vividness or to highlight some aspect of the narrative.’34 He qualifies this by claiming that those historical presents that introduce discourse represent an idiom that has lost its original force.35 A significant problem with this theory is illuminated by the distribution of historical presents. They are rarely clustered together, but often alternate with aorists, which is a fact that does not support the traditional view. As Kiparsky notes, ‘This alternation of past and present is particularly surprising when it occurs, as frequently happens, in closely parallel structures.’36 He provides some edited examples from Thucydides with their ungrammatical literal English translations: 37 Thucydides 7.29.3 a[ma de. th|/ h`me,ra| th|/ po,lei prose,keito kai. ai`rei/ at daybreak he attacked the town and takes it

33 34

35

36 37

that it is problematic if the Präsensstamm could have a perfektiver Aktionsart; see E. Rodenbusch, ‘Präsensstamm und perfecktive Aktionsart’, Indogermanische Forschungen 22 (1911), 402–8. Indeed, Barri’s explanation would only be feasible within a set of privative oppositions, rather than equipollent (see ch.1, § 3.2). In an equipollent system, the historical present is not considered as ‘a neutralization of some aspect opposition’; Eva Hedin, ‘The Type-Referring Function of the Imperfective’, in Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe (ed. Östen Dahl; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000), 228. Ruipérez, Aspectos, 147. Wallace, Grammar, 526. See also Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 227–28; Kurt von Fritz, ‘The SoCalled Historical Present in Early Greek’, Word 5 (1949), 196–97; Jesse L. Rose, The Durative and Aoristic Tenses in Thucydides (Language Dissertation 35, supplement to Language; Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America, 1942), 28; J. C. Hawkins, Horae Synopticae: Contributions to the Study of the Synoptic Problem (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1909), 114. Wallace, Grammar, 527. Wallace references BDF, § 321, on this point, though BDF makes no such claim. Kiparsky, ‘Tense’, 30–31. Ibid. 31.

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Thucydides 8.84.4 e;labon de. kai. to. frou,rion kai. tou.j evno,ntaj fu,lakaj evkba,llousin they captured the fort and drive out the garrison Thucydides 8.102.2 ai` me.n plei,ouj evpi. th/j ;Imbrou die,fugon, te,ssarej de. katalamba,nontai most of them escaped towards Imbros, but four are caught Reynolds also elucidates this problem: It is obvious that if the narrator for vividness intended to give the impression that he was relating the events as he saw them, he would continue to use the present tense and not break the illusion by introducing a past tense. The New Testament writers make no effort to maintain an illusion of this sort.38

It would appear that the traditional view has probably come about by transferring to Ancient Greek an intuition about the historical present found in modern European languages, but this transfer is quite mistaken.39 5.2 The zero-tense theory Kiparsky was one of the first to challenge seriously the traditional view, and was also the first to expound the zero-tense theory, in which he argued that the historical present ‘functions syntactically as a past tense’; it ‘is semantically indistinguishable from the past tenses, and it alternates with these in conjoined structures’.40 Kiparsky proposed that the historical present is governed by some kind of conjunction reduction, ‘which optionally reduces repeated occurrences of the

––––––– 38 39

40

S. Reynolds, ‘The Zero Tense in Greek’, Westminster Theological Journal 32 (1969), 70. Kiparsky, ‘Tense’, 30. While the traditional view draws upon modern usage within European languages, Wolfson, ironically, argues that the conversational historical present does not function this way in English anyhow. See Naomi Wolfson, ‘The Conversational Historical Present Alternation’, Language 55 (1979), 172; Naomi Wolfson, CHP: The Conversational Historical Present in American English Narrative (Topics in Sociolinguistics 1; Dordrecht: Foris, 1982), 33–34. Kiparsky, ‘Tense’, 33.

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same tense to the present’.41 This conjunction reduction yields present tenseforms because they are the zero or unmarked tense.42 Thus, the sequence past…and…past is reduced to past…and…zero, and since it is the present that is the ‘zero’ tense-form, the structure past…and…zero is realized morphologically as past…and…present.43 Levin accepts Kiparsky’s theory, yet draws attention to the fact that not even the first verb of a Greek narrative section needs to be in a past tense. ‘Such usage of the present form has been recognized by grammarians of modern times to have no connotation of drama or vividness’.44 The problem here is that without the first verb being a past tense, Kiparsky’s theory fails. The entire principle of conjunction reduction is that the historical present takes over from the aorist as a zero tense; without the aorist, how is the zero tense supposed to carry the narrative? Indeed, Kiparsky’s theory is unable to explain the historical presents in a passage such as Mark 15:17–24. Mark 15:17–24 kai. evndidu,skousin auvto.n porfu,ran kai. peritiqe,asin auvtw/| ple,xantej avka,nqinon ste,fanon\ 18 kai. h;rxanto avspa,zesqai auvto,n\ cai/re( basileu/ tw/n VIoudai,wn\ 19 kai. e;tupton auvtou/ th.n kefalh.n kala,mw| kai. evne,ptuon auvtw/| kai. tiqe,ntej ta. go,nata proseku,noun auvtw/|Å 20 kai. o[te evne,paixan auvtw/|( evxe,dusan auvto.n th.n porfu,ran kai. evne,dusan auvto.n ta. i`ma,tia auvtou/Å Kai. evxa,gousin auvto.n i[na staurw,swsin auvto,nÅ 21 kai. avggareu,ousin para,gonta, tina Si,mwna Kurhnai/on evrco,menon avpV avgrou/( to.n pate,ra VAlexa,ndrou kai. ~Rou,fou( i[na a;rh| to.n stauro.n auvtou/Å 22 Kai. fe,rousin auvto.n evpi. to.n Golgoqa/n to,pon( o[ evstin meqermhneuo,menon Krani,ou To,pojÅ 23 kai. evdi,doun auvtw/| evsmurnisme,non oi=non\ o]j de. ouvk e;labenÅ 24 Kai. staurou/s in auvto.n kai. diameri,zontai ta. i`ma,tia auvtou/( ba,llontej klh/ron evpV auvta. ti,j ti, a;rh|Å They clothed him in a purple cloak, then twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ 19 They struck his head with a staff and spat on him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20 And after they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then ––––––– 41

42 43 44

Ibid. 33–34. See also Reynolds, ‘Zero Tense’; Carroll D. Osburn, ‘The Historical Present in Mark as a Text-Critical Criterion’, Biblica 64 (1983), 486–500. For a different theory that produces the same result, see Ruipérez, ‘Morphological Oppositions’, 241–52. Kiparsky, ‘Tense’, 34. Ibid. 35. Saul Levin, ‘Remarks on the “Historical” Present and Comparable Phenomena of Syntax’, Foundations of Language 5 (1969), 386.

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they led him out to crucify him. 21 They forced a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22 Then they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each would take. Most of these historical presents occur at the beginning of sentences and without the presence of aorists. Clearly these historical presents are not explicable in terms of conjunction reduction.45 5.3 Discourse-prominence theories Recent analyses have taken into account the important advances of the discipline of discourse analysis, and have proposed a structuring or prominence role for the historical present, especially in Mark.46 Commenting on the usage in Mark, Buth claims, ‘As soon as one glances over the nonle,gein uses, he notices that they often occur at the beginnings of paragraphs.’47 Buth builds on the much earlier work of Thackeray,48 who claims that the historical present functions to introduce new scenes in a narrative text. It signals the arrival of a new character or a change of location or marks a turning-point in the sequence of events. Even the discourseintroducing le,gw is regarded as the loquitur introducing a new speaker.49 ––––––– 45

46

47 48

49

See also the criticisms in K. L. McKay, ‘Further Remarks on the “Historical” Present and Other Phenomena’, Foundations of Language 11 (1974), 247–51; Wolfson, ‘Historical Present’, 169. Reed defines prominence as ‘those semantic and grammatical elements of discourse that serve to set aside certain subjects, ideas or motifs of the author as more or less semantically and pragmatically significant than others’; Jeffrey T. Reed, ‘Identifying Theme in the New Testament: Insights from Discourse Analysis’, in Porter, Discourse Analysis, 75–76 [italics are original]. See also Stanley E. Porter, ‘How Can Biblical Discourse Be Analyzed?: A Response to Several Attempts’, in Porter, Discourse Analysis, 107–16, and RR, ‘Discourse’, 181–99. Randall Buth, ‘Mark’s Use of the Historical Present’, Notes on Translation 65 (1977), 7. It is astonishing how much discussion is based on the assertions of Thackeray, given that his treatment of the historical present spans only three pages, with Mark receiving just one paragraph; H. St. John Thackeray, ‘The Historical Present and Its Functions’, in The Septuagint and Jewish Worship: A Study in Origins (The Schweich Lectures, 1920; 2nd ed.; London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1923), 20–22. Ibid. 21. Levinsohn argues similarly, again with reference to Mark, that the historical

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Working with The Gospel of John, Boos acknowledges Thackeray’s observations with respect to Mark, and though John demonstrates some usage of the historical present that is similar to that found in Mark, Boos however observes that there are numerous examples in John where such is not the case.50 Moreover, Thackeray fails to answer the question as to why Mark and John do not always use this construction to start a paragraph or introduce a new participant; ‘What is Mark communicating to his readers when he uses the present tense for this purpose?’51 Boos concludes with his own theory regarding the usage in John, that the

50

51

present has ‘the effect of highlighting certain episodes and themes, in what is basically a narrative presentation’; Stephen H. Levinsohn, ‘Preliminary Observations on the Use of the Historic Present in Mark’, Notes on Translation 65 (1977), 13. For a more refined restatement, see Levinsohn’s later work on Matthew; Stephen H. Levinsohn, ‘The Historic Present and Speech Margins in Matthew’, in Language in Context: Essays for Robert E. Longacre (ed. Shin Ja J. Hwang and William R. Merrifield; A Publication of The Summer Institute of Linguistics and The University of Texas at Arlington, 1992), 451–73. Arguing along similar lines with respect to Matthew, Schenk claims ‘Matthäus setzt das PH [Präsens historicum] bewußt als kompositorisches Stilmittel ein, um den Höhepunkt einer Perikope zu markieren’; Wolfgang Schenk, ‘Das Präsens historicum als makrosyntaktisches Gliederungssignal im Matthäusevangelium’, New Testament Studies 22 (1976), 468. See also S. M. B. Wilmshurst, ‘The Historic Present in Matthew’s Gospel: A Survey and Analysis Focused on Mathew [sic] 13.44’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 25/3 (2003), 269–87; Robert E. Longacre, ‘Building for the Worship of God: Exodus 25:1–30:10’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (ed. Walter R. Bodine; The Society of Biblical Literature: Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1995), 21–49; Elliot C. Maloney, ‘The Historical Present in The Gospel of Mark’, in To Touch the Text: Biblical and Related Studies in Honor of Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. (ed. M. Horgan and P. Kobelski; New York: Crossroad, 1989), 67–78; Ralph Enos, ‘The Use of the Historical Present in the Gospel According to St. Mark’, Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest 3/4 (1981), 281–98. Callow, referring to nonspeech historical presents, says, ‘The most obvious and simplest analysis of these examples is to say the HP has two functions: a. To “bring onto the stage” participants who will be involved in the subsequent story […] b. To take Jesus (usually with the disciples) to some new location […] or to indicate where Jesus was’. John Callow, ‘The Function of the Historic Present in Mark 1.16–3.6; 4.1–41; 7.1–23; 12.13–34’, Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics 11 (1984), 2–3. David Boos, ‘The Historical Present in John’s Gospel’, Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics 11 (1984), 18. Ibid. 19.

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notable clusters of the historical present indicate the significance to the total narrative of the sections in which they are found. Such episodes ‘signal an important development in the whole plot structure of the discourse’.52 The main weakness with this theory, however, is that it falls under the same criticism that Boos himself levels at Thackeray. It may suit the book in question, but fails to explain the phenomenon of the historical present across Greek literature generally. In fact, Boos also admits that his theory fails to explain the use of the historical present in introducing discourse.53 Clearly there are significant problems with the discourse-analysis offerings presented here. Even if these observations in Mark and John are accurate, it is not explained why the historical present is used in these ways, let alone how it functions outside Mark and John.54 Leong, however, correctly acknowledges that the discourse function of the historical present within Mark does not account for its usage in other narrative texts, and suggests that the ‘intrinsic effect’ of an historical present ‘is basically its ability to catch the attention of the reader or audience, since present time is not the norm for narrating past events’.55 While this explanation may hold some ––––––– 52 53

54

55

Ibid. 19–20. ‘One area which needs additional study is the use of the historical present in the quote formula of reported speech. what [sic] is John’s purpose in using direct quotation and then how does that relate to the use of lego and phemi in the quote formulas?’ Ibid. 22. ‘While these discourse-functions for the historical present seem valid for Mark, it is evident that not all paragraph-beginnings or changes within paragraphs are highlighted by the historical present. It is not clear how the present differs from other features used to structure the narrative.’ Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 233. Battle offers an interesting solution by claiming that all three views presented so far are correct to varying degrees: ‘It appears that the New Testament was written in a transition period, from zero tense usages [view 2] to more modern dramatic present usages [view 1]. The various authors were each more or less developed in the transition. In Matthew, Luke-Acts, and most of the narrative of John, the historical present seems aoristic. Especially is it so when surrounded by aorists in context (as Mt. 19). In Mark the historical present has various aspects. Generally, verbs which introduce new paragraphs [view 3], and verbs of saying or going are aoristic. However, when a section contains a high percentage of imperfects and historical presents (e.g., the Passion Narrative), those historical presents can be assumed to be durative in aspect.’ John A. Battle, Jr., ‘The Present Indicative in New Testament Exegesis’ (Th.D. thesis, Grace Theological Seminary, 1975), 133. This is to be rejected, however, on the grounds that it is predicated on the ability of the present indicative to change aspects (see the comments in n. 32 above). Siang Nuan Leong, ‘Macro-Structure of Mark in Light of the Historic Present and Other Structural Markers’ (M.Th. thesis, Singapore Bible College, 2004), 77.

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promise, in that it permits a variety of pragmatic functions for the historical present across various texts, it fails to explain the purpose of mid-episodic, non-discourse-introducing, historical presents.56 It remains unclear, then, what these historical presents are supposed to be drawing attention to. 5.4 The timeless aspectual theory The problem of the historical present becomes less problematic if the present tense-form is not regarded as a present tense. Porter champions the timeless aspectual approach, in which the tense-forms in Greek are regarded as aspectually based rather than temporal. As such, the occurrence of the present tense-form within past-referring contexts ‘inherently poses no grammatical problems, merely potentially misleading problems of nomenclature’.57 Porter’s aspectual explanation also allows him to make conclusions about the use of the historical present and discourse analysis. In a fashion similar to the arguments advanced under the previous category, Porter claims that the historical present is used to draw attention to an event or series of events, which includes the beginning of units of discourse, possibly being used to highlight the discourse unit itself or the transition to the new unit. It may identify new settings and participants, events selected for special significance, speech considered particularly significant, and final closing events.58 The chief distinction that Porter’s theory brings to the discussion is that he has better grounds for explaining why the historical present functions in this way: it is a product of aspectual opposition.59 The opposition between the imperfective and perfective aspects provides his theory regarding the use of the historical present with more explanatory power than the other three theories. However, the opposition between imperfective and perfective cannot be the final solution, as this would not explain why present indicatives ––––––– 56

57 58 59

Leong suggests that mid-episodic historical presents flag significant speech content, which accounts for those historical presents that introduce discourse; ibid. 75. There are, however, historical presents that do not introduce speech or initiate episodes, as observed below in our source texts (see § 5.5). Porter, Verbal Aspect, 195. Ibid. 196. See also Decker, Temporal Deixis, 101; Stephanie L. Black, ‘The Historic Present in Matthew: Beyond Speech Margins’, in Discourse Analysis and the New Testament: Approaches and Results (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Jeffrey T. Reed; JSNTS 170; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 124.

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are used when the imperfect indicative would suffice as an imperfective option that is well suited to narrative proper. Porter hints at the final step needed to achieve full power of explanation, when he argues that the imperfect indicative is ‘the less heavily marked imperfective form, grammaticalizing [+remoteness], i.e., it is used in contexts where the action is seen as more remote than the action described by the (non-remote) Present’.60 The absence of remoteness is the feature that marks the present tenseform as a distinct choice as opposed to the imperfect. This is very close to the position that is argued for here. However, whereas Porter describes the present negatively, as non-remote, it is argued above that the present tenseform grammaticalizes a positive proximity value (see § 4 above). It will now be argued that, with respect to the historical present, the value of proximity provides for yet greater explanatory power. 5.5 The historical present and source texts The survey of our source texts conducted above in § 3 that examines those presents that occur outside discourse has already identified all historical presents in our source texts (since there are no historical presents that occur within discourse). Theoretically, then, the list of historical presents cannot be larger than the list of the presents outside discourse, though it may be a smaller list, if some of these presents are not past-referring. 5.5.1 Luke. Of the 14 present indicatives outside discourse in Luke, 2 are not past-referring: kale,w (2:4), and eivmi, (8:26). There are, then, 12 historical presents in Luke. As demonstrated above (in § 3.1), 11 of these 12 function to introduce discourse, while the twelfth historical present is a verb of propulsion (e;rcomai). Porter argues that these historical presents are used to introduce a unit (8:49; 11:37, 45; 24:36), to conclude a discourse unit (24:12), and to single out climactic incidents or dialogue (13:8; 16:7, 23, 29; 19:22).61 Certainly, the first four historical presents cited here do occur at the beginning of paragraphs. The fifth does close a paragraph, but to say that this is a discourse function of the historical present seems a little forced. Furthermore, the remaining ––––––– 60 61

Porter, Verbal Aspect, 207. Ibid. 197–98.

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historical presents that supposedly ‘single out climactic incidents or dialogue’ seem to be fairly arbitrary, rather than being intentionally placed for the purpose that Porter proposes. It remains, therefore, difficult to assert a consistent discourse function for the historical present in Luke. It is more accurate to conclude that the 11 historical presents that introduce discourse are simply the result of the spill of the imperfective-proximate nature of the discourse that they introduce; they therefore do not indicate any special discourse function.62 The one verb of propulsion is employed at the beginning of a paragraph (8:49), perhaps in order to heighten the sense of transition; the paragraph resumes the section left at 8:42 after an excursus between 8:43–48. 5.5.2 John. John represents a massive increase in the number of historical presents, with 167 attested. Of these 167, 144 are used to introduce discourse (128 direct; 16 indirect), and the remaining 23 are verbs of propulsion. The distribution of the historical present in John is indicated by this chart adapted from O’Rourke. I have added the figures in brackets to indicate the number of historical presents that introduce discourse.63 Figure 2: Historical presents in John (continued on next page) Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Finite Verbs Not in Historical Presents Reported Speech 88 20 (13) 46 7 (7) 24 1 (1) 76 16 (14) 29 3 (2) 79 5 (5) 56 2 (2) 47 2 (1) 64 65 3 (2)

Percentage of Historical Presents 22.72 15.21 4.16 21.05 10.34 6.33 3.56 4.25 4.61

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See Black for the same conclusion in Matthew; Black, ‘Historical Present’, 126–27. John J. O’Rourke, ‘The Historic Present in the Gospel of John’, Journal of Biblical Literature 93 (1974), 586–87. O’Rourke includes presents that occur in authorial discourse, but this does not greatly affect the outcome. O’Rourke notes only 1 historical present in ch.8; I count 2.

CHAPTER TWO: THE PRESENT TENSE-FORM 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Totals

24 89 70 49 6 0 6 2 80 97 66 62 1061

0 (0) 11 (8) 6 (4) 18 (12) 5 (5) 0 (0) 1 (1) 0 (0) 10 (9) 10 (10)65 23 (17) 23 (20) 164 (133)

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0.00 12.35 8.57 36.73 83.33 0.00 16.66 0.00 12.50 10.3 34.84 37.09 15.45

The chart reveals that John certainly does use the historical present in clusters, as seen in chapters 1, 4, 13, 20, and 21, which display significantly more historical presents than other chapters. It is easy to assume that these historical presents contribute to these chapters some kind of discourse prominence; they are all arguably significant sections of John. The question remains, however, what the function of the historical presents is outside these chapters, since nearly every chapter has at least one. It would seem that the historical present on its own contributes nothing; they are commonplace. In fact, the chapters that display 5 or less historical presents demonstrate a high proportion of historical presents that introduce discourse. It is therefore prudent to regard these uses as not having significance, but merely exemplifying the imperfective-proximate spill from discourse. The interesting fact, however, is that those chapters that display a high number of historical presents are not accounted for by those that introduce discourse. For example, though chapter 1 has 13 historical presents that introduce discourse, it also has 7 verbs of propulsion, and though chapter 20 has 17 historical presents that introduce discourse, it also has 6 verbs of propulsion. It appears, then, that since these chapters display genuine clusters of both kinds of historical present, the clustering is deliberate. I suggest that only in clustering significant numbers of historical presents does John use the historical present for the purposes of discourse prominence. The remaining ––––––– 65

O’Rourke notes 9 historical presents in ch.19; I count 10.

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historical presents are cases of either the imperfective-proximate spill, or verbs of propulsion used for heightened transition. As such, I do not regard the historical present as a homogenous category, performing the same function with each occurrence. This explanation is more powerful than a less nuanced discourse analysis theory that attempts to attribute significance to every historical present, as it allows a normal use of the historical present as well as a significant use, rather than forcing upon each example an unlikely explanation.66 For example, Enos asserts than every historical present introducing discourse ‘reveals the same function, of highlighting Jesus’ authority, as was found with the pericope-initial historical presents of nonspeech verbs’.67 It is clear, however, that this is untenable, as an example from John 1:48 demonstrates: le,gei auvtw/| Naqanah,l\ po,qen me ginw,skeijÈ avpekri,qh VIhsou/j kai. ei=pen auvtw/|\ pro. tou/ se Fi,lippon fwnh/sai o;nta u`po. th.n sukh/n ei=do,n seÅ Nathanael said to him, ‘How do you know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you when you were under the fig tree, before Philip called you.’ Nathanael’s question is introduced by an historical present and Jesus’ reply is introduced by an aorist, yet if either of these should be seen as prominent, surely it must be Jesus’ reply, which not only implies miraculous powers on Jesus’ behalf, but elicits Nathanael’s response ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ (1:49). 5.5.3 Mark. As early as 1937, Zerwick noticed that many of Mark’s historical presents were forms of le,gw and e;rcomai.68 Indeed, of Mark’s 151 historical presents, 90 are used to introduce discourse (79 direct; 11 indirect), and 61 are verbs of propulsion. The distribution is represented by this table; again, the brackets represent the number of historical presents that introduce discourse.

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67 68

Wilmshurst recognizes that the historical present is not simply ‘a single-function marker’; Wilmshurst, ‘Historic Present’, 269. Enos, ‘Historical Present’, 291. Maximilian Zerwick, Untersuchungen zum Markus-Stil: ein Beitrag zur stilistischen Durcharbeitung des Neuen Testaments (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici 91; Rome: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1937), 49 ff.

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Figure 3: Historical presents in Mark

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Historical Presents 8 (5) 11 (7) 11 (7) 7 (3) 16 (9) 11 (6) 7 (5) 11 (9) 6 (3) 10 (6) 13 (5) 5 (3) 1 (1) 23 (12) 10 (2) 3 (2)

The distribution is more regular in Mark than in John, with only chapter 14 standing out as having an exceptionally greater than average number of historical presents, which may in part be due to the chapter’s immense length. In fact, the historical presents are reasonably even in their spread across 72 verses; it is difficult to argue that this represents a genuine cluster. Another difference to John is that each chapter has both types of historical present; those introducing discourse and those used with verbs of propulsion. The most startling statistic here is the proportion of propulsion verbs compared to introducers of discourse in chapter 15. It is unusual that 8 out of 10 historical presents should be verbs of propulsion. Mark 11 is the only other chapter in both Mark and John that displays significantly more propulsion historical presents than introducers of discourse, but even then the proportion is much stronger in Mark 15. Unlike chapter 14, Mark 15 does display a genuine cluster of historical presents: all 8 verbs of propulsion are found in a stretch of 10 verses.

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Mark 15:17–27 kai. evndidu,skousin auvto.n porfu,ran kai. peritiqe,asin auvtw/| ple,xantej avka,nqinon ste,fanon\ 18 kai. h;rxanto avspa,zesqai auvto,n\ cai/re( basileu/ tw/n VIoudai,wn\ 19 kai. e;tupton auvtou/ th.n kefalh.n kala,mw| kai. evne,ptuon auvtw/| kai. tiqe,ntej ta. go,nata proseku,noun auvtw/|Å 20 kai. o[te evne,paixan auvtw/|( evxe,dusan auvto.n th.n porfu,ran kai. evne,dusan auvto.n ta. i`ma,tia auvtou/Å Kai. evxa,gousin auvto.n i[na staurw,swsin auvto,nÅ 21 kai. avggareu,ousin para,gonta, tina Si,mwna Kurhnai/on evrco,menon avpV avgrou/( to.n pate,ra VAlexa,ndrou kai. ~Rou,fou( i[na a;rh| to.n stauro.n auvtou/Å 22 Kai. fe,rousin auvto.n evpi. to.n Golgoqa/n to,pon( o[ evstin meqermhneuo,menon Krani,ou To,pojÅ 23 kai. evdi,doun auvtw/| evsmurnisme,non oi=non\ o]j de. ouvk e;labenÅ 24 Kai. staurou/s in auvto.n kai. diameri,zontai ta. i`ma,tia auvtou/( ba,llontej klh/ron evpV auvta. ti,j ti, a;rh|Å 25 h=n de. w[ra tri,th kai. evstau,rwsan auvto,nÅ 26 kai. h=n h` evpigrafh. th/j aivti,aj auvtou/ evpigegramme,nh\ o` basileu.j tw/n VIoudai,wnÅ 27 Kai. su.n auvtw/| staurou/sin du,o lh|sta,j( e[na evk dexiw/n kai. e[na evx euvwnu,mwn auvtou/Å They clothed him in a purple cloak, then twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ 19 They struck his head with a staff and spat on him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20 And after they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. 21 They forced a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. 22 Then they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull). 23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each would take. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ 27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. It is very easy to argue that this section is intended to be prominent, indeed even that it is the climax of Mark’s Gospel, as Jesus is mocked, led out to be crucified, and then crucified. Even a casual reading of Mark indicates that the sweep of the entire narrative is leading to this very point, as many commentators note. Undoubtedly this is a highly significant section, and some suggest that the historical presents underscore this significance.69 It is ––––––– 69

‘Finally, Mark is able to use this construction as a climax marker to draw attention to the crucifixion of Jesus. Mark leaves no doubt as to his intentions, when in Mark 15.16–28 he uses the historical present nine times, of which three times are irregular usages and in

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possible, however, to arrive at a slightly more nuanced explanation of these historical presents. A striking feature of this passage is that all the action is conducted by the Roman soldiers, and the emphasis is on what they did to Jesus. They clothed him in a purple cloak, they put a crown of thorns on him, they led him out to be crucified, they compelled Simon of Cyrene to help Jesus, they brought Jesus to Golgotha, they crucified him, they divided his garments, and they crucified the robbers. Let there be no doubt whom Mark is portraying as the perpetrators of the execution of Jesus. Additionally, it is what they did to Jesus; he is the passive receiver of their actions. The historical present verbs of propulsion are a marvelous fit for Mark’s purposes here. They are used to highlight the transitions that are taking place: they are putting him to death. This is a strong depiction of the force of these events and the thrust with which Jesus is led to his death. 5.5.4 Vita Aesopi G. There are a staggering 253 historical presents in Vita Aesopi G, 230 of which are used to introduce discourse. It is not possible to determine any special prominence function for the historical presents that introduce discourse; in fact these 230 historical presents even outnumber the aorists that introduce discourse at 208 times, putting the historical present on a (slightly better than) equal footing with the aorist as a standard introducer of discourse. The imperfective-proximate spill is a normal occurrence with no special import in this work. This leaves 23 other historical presents, 12 of which are verbs of propulsion (see § 3.3 for the details of these and the remaining verbs). The verbs of propulsion show no discernable pattern of usage, only once being found at the beginning of a paragraph (122: panou/rgoj de. w[n o` Ai;swpoj kaqe,zetai… But Aesop, being ever crafty, sat down…), and are nowhere found in any kind of cluster. These historical presents are simply used to heighten the transition conveyed by the verbs of propulsion. 5.5.5 Chariton. Chariton book 1 attests 20 historical presents, which, as observed in § 3.4, consist of 19 that introduce discourse and 1 that is a verb of propulsion. There are no observable clusters of historical presents, and none are found at the beginning of a paragraph or discourse unit. connection with the verb staurou/n “to crucify”.’ Buth, ‘Historical Present’, 13. Incidentally, Mark uses the historical present 8, not 9, times in this section, and only twice with the verb stauro,w.

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5.5.6 Oxyrhynchus Papyri. As observed in § 3.5, there are 11 present indicatives outside discourse in the sample from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Only 3 of these, however, are genuine historical presents; 1 introduces discourse and 2 are verbs of propulsion. The remaining 8 function within narrative commentary and, as observed above, are therefore connected with the time of writing. As such, they cannot be regarded as authentic historical presents, since they are not historical but are capable of a non-past translation. 5.5.7 Thucydides. Thucydides is known for his historical presents,70 and our sample appears to reinforce the general perception, demonstrating that 46.4 percent of all presents are past-referring. However, this figure is a little misleading, as it must be remembered that there are comparatively fewer present indicatives in our sample than in the other works, attesting only 84 out of a total of 564 indicatives (14.9 percent). In fact, there are only 39 historical presents in this sample. Of these, 11 are used to introduce discourse, and 28 are verbs of propulsion. In the sample, there appears to be no pattern of usage resembling a prominence function. There are four historical presents at the beginning of sections 1.112, 1.118, 1.136, and 1.137, but these hardly constitute a pattern; nor are there any clusters of historical presents. However, such clusters are not alien to Thucydides, and if we briefly step outside our sample we see that such a cluster may be found, albeit not as tight a cluster as that of Mark. Thucydides 7.43.3–4 kai. evpeidh. evge,nonto pro.j auvtai/j kata. to.n Euvru,hlon, h|-per kai. h` prote,ra stratia. to. prw/ton avvne,bh, lanqa,nousi, te tou.j fu,lakaj tw/n Surakosi,wn, kai. prosba,ntej to. tei,cisma o] h=n auvto,qi tw/n Surakosi,wn ai`rou/si kai. a;ndraj tw/n fula,kwn avpoktei,nousin\ oi` de. plei,ouj diafugo,ntej euvqu.j pro.j ta. strato,peda, a] h=n evpi. tw/n vEpipolw/n tri,a evn proteici,smasin, e]n de. tw/n xumma,cwn, avgge,llousi th.n e;fodon kai. toi/j e`xakosi,oij tw/n Surakosi,wn, oi] kai. prw/toi kata. tou/to to. me,roj tw/n vEpipolw/n fu,lakej h=san, e;frazon. And when they came to it [Epipolae], by way of the Eurylus, where indeed the previous army had gone up first, they were unnoticed by the Syracusan guards and attacking the fort which was there they seized it and killed some of the guards; but most, fleeing immediately to the camps which were three upon the Epipolae, one belonging to the Syracusans, one to the other Siceliots, and one to the allies, they reported the foray and ––––––– 70

See Rose, ‘Durative and Aoristic Tenses’, 27.

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pointed it out to the six hundred Syracusans who were first guards along this portion of the Epipolae. Generally speaking, however, it would appear that Thucydides does not normally use the historical present for any special discourse prominence; rather, it is used with verbs of propulsion to heighten transition, and with introducers of discourse because of the imperfective-proximate spill. 5.5.8 Lysias. There are 10 historical presents in our Lysian speech (see § 3.7), of which 3 introduce discourse and 7 are verbs of propulsion. Most of these historical presents (8 of 10) are found in a cluster that rivals Mark’s. Lysias 12.10–14 evpeidh. de. w[mosen, evxw,leian e`autw|/ kai. toi/j paisi.n evparw,menoj, labw.n to. ta,lanto,n me sw,sein, eivselqw.n eivj to. dwma,tion th.n kibwto.n avnoi,gnumi\ Pei,swn d’ aivsqo,menoj eivse,rcetai, kai. ivdw.n ta. evno,nta kalei/ tw/n u`phretw/n du,o, kai. ta. evn th|/ kibwtw|/ labei/n evke,leusen. evpei. de. ouvc o[son w`molo,ghto ei=cen, w= a;ndrej dikastai, avlla. tri,a ta,lanta avrguri,ou kai. tetrako,siouj kuzikhnou.j kai. e`kato.n dareikou.j kai. fia,laj avrgura/j te,ttaraj, evdeo,mhn auvtou/ evfo,di,a moi dou/nai, o` d’ avgaph,sein me e;fasken, eiv to. sw/ma sw,sw. evxiou/si d’ evmoi. kai. Pei,swni evpitugca,nei Mhlo,bio,j te kai. Mnhsiqei,dhj evk tou/ evrgasthri,ou avpio,ntej, kai. katalamba,nousi pro.j auvtai/j tai/j qu,raij, kai. evrwtw/sin o[poi badi,zoimen\ o` d’ e;fasken eivj ta. tou/ avdelfou/ tou/ evmou/, i[na kai. ta. evn evkei,nh| th|/ oivki,a| ske,yhtai. evkei/non me.n ou=n evke,leuon badi,zein, evme. de. meq’ au`tw/n avkolouqei/n eivj Damni,ppou. Pei,swn de. proselqw.n siga/n moi parekeleu,eto kai. qarrei/n, w`j h[xwn evkei/se. katalamba,nomen de. auvto,qi Qe,ognin e`te,rouj fula,ttonta\ w|- parado,ntej evme. pa,lin w|;conto. evn toiou,tw| d’ o;nti moi kinduneu,ein evdo,kei, w`j tou/ ge avpoqanei/n u`pa,rcontoj h;dh. kale,saj de. Da,mnippon le,gw pro.j auvto.n ta,de […] When he had sworn, invoking destruction upon himself and his children if he did not save me after receiving the talent, I went into my bedroom and opened the money-chest. Peison noticed it and came in. Seeing its contents, he called two of his subordinates and ordered them take what was in the chest. Since he now had, instead of the agreed amount, gentlemen, three talents of silver, four hundred gold coins, a hundred darics and four silver cups, I begged him to give me money for my journey; but he said that I should be glad to save my skin. As Peison and I were coming out, Melobius and Mnesitheides met us, who were on the way from the factory: they encountered us at the door, and asked where we were going. Peison stated that he was going to my brother’s, so that he might examine the

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property in that house also. So they urged him to go, but told me to follow them to Damnippus’ house. Peison came up and urged me to keep silent and have courage, as he would go on to that place. There we encountered Theognis guarding some others; they handed me over to him, and went off again. In this state, I decided to take a risk, since death was already my lot. Calling Damnippus, I said to him […] Suffice to say, this section is pivotal to the story that Lysias relates in his oration, and conveys a significant element of his grievance against Eratosthenes. It does not seem coincidental that of the entire narrative segment of Lysias’ speech, nearly all its historical presents occur here. Undoubtedly this usage of the historical present serves to heighten the dramatic import of this critical juncture. 5.5.9 Conclusion. The historical present does not necessarily carry special significance, as the evidence from Luke, Vita Aesopi G, Chariton, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and Thucydides demonstrates. It would appear, however, that an author may use the historical present within the realm of discourse-prominence, as John, Mark, and Lysias demonstrate.71 Mark can use the historical present at the beginning of key paragraphs and employs a significant cluster in chapter 15 to heighten the sense of the putting to death of Jesus. John can use the historical present in less defined clusters, but clusters nevertheless, in certain chapters that are especially significant in the course of the narrative text.72 Lysias uses historical presents within a large ––––––– 71

72

Sicking and Stork conclude similarly about the works of Sophocles, Xenophon, and Herodotus, submitting that these authors use the historical present ‘as a device for organizing […] narrative and enabling the reader to distinguish between matter that relates to what is the writer’s main concern, and other ingredients of the narrative’. However, the historical present delineates what is not part of the author’s main intention: Herodotus’ ‘motive for presenting [this section] almost completely by means of HPs may have been that he wanted to signal to the reader that the story, as a whole, has to be kept apart from its surrounding context’; C. M. J. Sicking and P. Stork. ‘The Grammar of the So-Called Historical Present in Ancient Greek’, in Grammar as Interpretation: Greek Literature in its Linguistic Contexts (ed. E. J. Bakker; Leiden; 1997), 144–45, 158. Many have assumed that Mark and John employ the historical present as a vulgarism, due to the assumption that it functions similarly to its use in vernacular English: ‘In Hellenistic Greek the non-literary writer would use HP as many people in spontaneous speaking do today, but the literary writer, like Diodorus, avoided it.’ G. D. Kilpatrick, ‘The Historic Present in the Gospels and Acts’, Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 68 (1977), 258. The deliberate discourse-prominence use of the historical present in Mark

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cluster at a critical turning point in his story. Thus, the level of significance attached to the historical present is a matter of style; some authors may employ it with specific intention, while others do not. Part of the problem of establishing a proper understanding of the historical present is that many studies are conducted with reference to only one author and so they propose a solution that explains the phenomena in one particular book, but which lacks explanatory power beyond that. The theory that the present tense-form grammaticalizes both imperfective aspect and the spatial element of proximity has the ability to explain the usage of the historical present across various authors. Generally speaking, historical presents that introduce discourse are the result of the imperfective-proximate nature of discourse spilling-over to the verb that introduces it. Verbs of propulsion may be found as historical presents simply to heighten the sense of transition that the verb denotes, and are used when the author sees fit. With this explanation of the phenomenon, we see why it is that employment of the historical present is not always of special significance. However, this theory also accommodates usage of the historical present that is of special significance. For example, the reason that it may be found at the beginning of certain pericopae within Mark is because Mark wishes to highlight that Jesus has moved to a new location, thus a new section has begun. It is not just the fact that an historical present appears that marks a new pericope, but it is because a geographical transition has taken place, and this transition is heightened by use of an historical present of propulsion.73 Furthermore, when John uses the historical present in significant clusters it may have the effect of emphasizing the imperfective-proximate nature of a particular section of the narrative, in order to sustain the effect of the reader

73

and John, however, implies quite the opposite. ‘Contrary to Moulton, who thought that the historical present did not function in literature as a literary form, it functions in Mark as in earlier Greek literature in highly systematic fashion as a discourse marker to denote semantic shifts to more prominent material.’ Osburn, ‘Historical Present’, 500. Also, ‘Mark’s employment of the historical present is evidence of a highly sophisticated mastery of effective communication and style, and thus tends to refute those who would class his style as “barbarous” or “unrefined”.’ Enos, ‘Historical Present’, 282. ‘When a verb of arrival such as “come, bring, call together” [i.e., a verb of propulsion] is presented in the present tense in narrative, this indicates that the participant involved either has arrived at or has been brought to the place where a significant interaction of participants is to take place. In other words, the historic present establishes the location in which an important interaction will occur.’ Levinsohn, ‘Historical Present’, 13.

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being drawn inside the narrative. In conclusion, then, it has been demonstrated that in regard to the historical present this conception of the semantic qualities of the present tense-form provides greater power of explanation than other theories. 6. Conclusion The distribution of the present indicative indicates that it is primarily a discourse tense-form, most often used in direct and indirect discourse. Its connection with discourse is expressed even when found outside it, as an introducer of discourse. In all the texts examined it was found that the present indicatives outside discourse were either introducers of discourse or verbs of propulsion. It has been argued that the reason for this macro-pattern is that the present tense-form grammaticalizes both imperfective aspect and the spatial value of proximity. The imperfective-proximity of the present indicative attracts it to the imperfective nature of discourse, as both an introducer of discourse and a major discourse verbal form. This imperfectiveproximity is also used with verbs of propulsion in order to heighten the sense of transition inherent in these verbs. It has been concluded that an imperfective-proximate understanding of the present indicative offers the most powerful explanation of the phenomenon of the historical present.

CHAPTER THREE The Imperfect Tense-form

1. Introduction The role of the imperfect indicative tense-form in narrative texts is investigated in this chapter, as is its grammatical semantics. First, the imperfective aspect of the imperfect indicative is affirmed here, in accord with general consensus. Second, usage of the imperfect in our source texts is investigated, demonstrating that it is primarily a narrative proper tense-form but also occurs in second-class conditional sentences in John. In order to account for the patterns of usage displayed by the imperfect, a theory is postulated regarding the grammatical semantics of the verb. There is a brief discussion regarding the pragmatic temporal reference of the imperfect indicative with an excursus on the meaning of the augment. The two major narrative proper uses of the imperfect indicative are then explored, and it is concluded that our postulated theory is capable of explaining the use of the imperfect in both offline and mainline clauses. Finally, the appearance of the imperfect in second-class conditional sentences is unfolded and explained by the proposed grammatical semantics of the verb, which also helps to explain the rare appearance of the imperfect within discourse. 2. Aspectual value As with the present indicative, there is a consensus regarding the imperfective aspect of the imperfect tense-form; imperfective aspect is grammaticalized in the imperfect indicative as a semantic value. As defined in chapter two, imperfective aspect is an internal viewpoint ‘without reference to the beginning or end-point of the action, but with a focus instead on its internal

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structure or make-up’.1 This is therefore the aspect shared with the present indicative, and a requisite task is to determine the nature of the opposition between present and imperfect forms. It was suggested in chapter two that the spatial categories of proximity and remoteness provide an explanation for this opposition and, as was argued in the case of the present indicative, provide considerable power of explanation when seeking to understand the patterned usage of the present and imperfect tense-forms. It was also argued in chapter two that the present indicative grammaticalizes both imperfective aspect and spatial proximity. It will be argued in this chapter that the imperfect indicative grammaticalizes both imperfective aspect and spatial remoteness. One of the tasks of this chapter, therefore, is to explore this concept of remoteness, the spatial opposition to proximity, and to seek to determine whether this spatial value does, in fact, provide a robust description of the grammatical semantics of the imperfect tense-form, together with its imperfective aspect. The obvious alternative to a remote-imperfective understanding of the grammatical semantics of the imperfect indicative is a past-imperfective understanding, where past temporal reference is the element that distinguishes the imperfect from the present indicative. This is a strongly held position with considerable merit (more so than the present-tense understanding of the present indicative). It will be argued, however, that a remote-imperfective understanding provides greater power of explanation concerning the textual usage of this form than does a past-imperfective understanding. A second important opposition to the imperfect indicative is of course the aorist indicative. Both tense-forms are regarded as narrative proper forms, and it is necessary to determine the nature of the opposition between the two. The commonly held view is that, while the imperfect grammaticalizes imperfective aspect, the aorist grammaticalizes perfective aspect. To anticipate the argument of chapter four, where the aorist indicative is treated in detail, it is in this chapter assumed that the commonly held view is correct; the aorist grammaticalizes perfective aspect, while the imperfect is aspectually imperfective. The way in which this perfective/imperfective opposition expresses itself in text will be a key question related to discourse-analysis; how does the choice of an imperfect rather than an aorist affect the nature of the narrative? We now turn to our ––––––– 1

Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 27.

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source texts to investigate the patterns of usage of the imperfect indicative. 3. Imperfect usage and function 3.1 Luke Of Luke’s 371 imperfect indicatives, 340 do not occur in direct discourse, with one of these occurring within indirect discourse (9:43), meaning that 88.8 percent of all imperfect indicatives in Luke do not occur in discourse but in narrative proper.2 A few examples will suffice. Luke 1:80 To. de. paidi,on hu;xanen kai. evkrataiou/to pneu,mati( kai. h=n evn tai/j evrh,moij e[wj h`me,raj avnadei,xewj auvtou/ pro.j to.n VIsrah,lÅ The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel. Luke 7:4 oi` de. parageno,menoi pro.j to.n VIhsou/n pareka,loun auvto.n spoudai,wj le,gontej o[ti a;xio,j evstin w-| pare,xh| tou/to\ When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, saying, ‘He deserves to have you do this…’3 Luke 18:15 Prose,feron de. auvtw/| kai. ta. bre,fh i[na auvtw/n a[pthtai\ ivdo,ntej de. oi` maqhtai. evpeti,mwn auvtoi/jÅ They were also bringing infants to him that he might touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. Luke has 44 imperfect indicatives occurring in discourse (43 direct; 1 indirect); one example will suffice. ––––––– 2

3

This figure may be altered to 80.8 percent if parables of Jesus are regarded as instances of direct discourse rather than narrative. As noted in chapter two, however, parables are here regarded as narratival in nature, with Jesus adopting the role of narrator, and verbal usage reflecting the patterns of normal narrative rather than discourse. It will be noted that this example demonstrates the imperfect within narrative and as introducing discourse. Introducing discourse is a common usage of the imperfect and is not regarded as being significant since it is a normal function of narrative verbs. This contrasts with our appreciation of the present indicative’s use as an introducer of discourse (ch.2), which is deemed significant because it is one of the two main functions that the present indicative performs when it is found outside discourse.

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Luke 9:49 VApokriqei.j de. VIwa,nnhj ei=pen\ evpista,ta( ei;dome,n tina evn tw/| ovno,mati, sou evkba,llonta daimo,nia kai. evkwlu,omen auvto,n( o[ti ouvk avkolouqei/ meqV h`mw/nÅ John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ This figure may be further refined with the recognition of a special use in Luke. In 17:27–28 there are 10 imperfects used in direct discourse yet not in a parable. In these two verses, however, Jesus appears to be recounting history in a manner similar to narrative. Luke 17:26–28 kai. kaqw.j evge,neto evn tai/j h`me,raij Nw/e( ou[twj e;stai kai. evn tai/j h`me,raij tou/ ui`ou/ tou/ avnqrw,pou\ 27 h;sqion( e;pinon( evga,moun( evgami,zonto( a;cri h-j h`me,raj eivsh/lqen Nw/e eivj th.n kibwto.n kai. h=lqen o` kataklusmo.j kai. avpw,lesen pa,ntajÅ 28 o`moi,wj kaqw.j evge,neto evn tai/j h`me,raij Lw,t\ h;sqion( e;pinon( hvgo,razon( evpw,loun( evfu,teuon( wv|kodo,moun\ Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. This is not a parable, but perhaps should be regarded in a similar fashion, as occurring within direct discourse yet cast as narrative.4 If these verses are regarded as being a kind of narrative, the above figure may be reset to 91.6 percent of imperfects occuring within narrative proper. It is concluded that the imperfect indicative is overwhelmingly a narrative proper tense-form in Luke with the vast majority of occurrences attested either in narrative proper, or embedded narrative when occurring within discourse. A small 8.3 percent of imperfects do not occur in narrative sections, but there does not appear to be any discernable pattern within this usage. The verbs found in discourse as imperfect indicatives are: zhte,w (twice), eivmi, (10 times),5 poie,w (3 times), ginw,skw, kwlu,w, qewre,w, dei/ (4 times), le,gw (twice), ––––––– 4 5

20:29 is similar. Not including one instance in a pluperfect periphrastic construction (15:24).

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ovfei,lw, e;cw (twice), fobe,w, evlpi,zw, dianoi,gw. The only noteworthy occurrence here is the relatively high frequency of eivmi, (10 times). 3.2 John Of the 289 imperfect indicatives in John, 53 are in discourse (44 direct; 9 indirect), leaving 236 in narrative proper (81.6 percent). The verbs represented in direct discourse are: eivmi, (24 times), pisteu,w (twice), poie,w, avgapa,w (twice), du,namai (twice), e;cw (5 times), zhte,w, file,w (twice), thre,w, avgwni,zomai, zwnnu,w, peripate,w, qe,lw. The verbs in indirect discourse are: eivmi, (3 times), lale,w (3 times), me,llw (twice), and qe,lw. Of these 53 discourse-imperfects, 21 occur in conditional sentences.6 These conditional sentences are all second-class conditions, which indicate ‘the assumption of an untruth (for the sake of argument)’.7 The significance of this phenomenon will be explored below (§ 4.3), but for now two examples will suffice: John 5:46 eiv ga.r evpisteu,ete Mwu?sei/( evpisteu,ete a'n evmoi,\ peri. ga.r evmou/ evkei/noj e;grayenÅ If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. John 15:19 eiv evk tou/ ko,smou h=te( o` ko,smoj a'n to. i;dion evfi,lei\ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. As with Luke, the majority of imperfect tense-forms occur within narrative proper rather than discourse. Of the imperfects that do occur in discourse, there does not appear to be any pattern of usage that determines which verbal forms are used, except that eivmi, is significantly dominant, accounting for 27 out of 53 discourse-imperfects. Also, 21 imperfects occur in conditional sentences (8 of these are eivmi,), thus these two categories account for 40 out of 53 discourse-imperfects (75.5 percent).

––––––– 6

7

5:46(x2); 8:39, 42(x2); 9:33(x2), 41(x2); 11:21, 32; 14:28; 15:19(x2), 22, 24; 18:30, 36(x2); 19:11(x2). Incidentally, Luke attests only 2 discourse-imperfects in a conditional sentence, both in the one sentence (7:39). Wallace, Grammar, 694–96 [italics are original].

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3.3 Vita Aesopi G Of the 186 imperfect indicatives in Vita Aesopi G, 137 occur within narrative proper, with 21 of these introducing discourse. There are 49 imperfects within direct discourse and 3 in indirect discourse. An example of the imperfect within indirect discourse is given. Vita Aesopi G 85 o` de. Ai;swpoj koimw,menoj eivj to. dwma,tion ei=den to.n despo,thn a;wron proerco,menon, aivsqo,menoj de. o] h;mellen poiei/n sunhkolou,qhsen auvtw/|, ouv mnhsikakh,saj peri. tou/ crusi,ou. From the room where Aesop was sleeping he saw his master going out early, and realizing what he was about to do, he went after him, not remaining bitter about the gold. Thus 73.6 percent of all imperfects occur in narrative proper, and 26.3 percent occur within discourse. The verbs occurring in discourse are: eivmi, (9 times), e;cw (7 times), le,gw (7 times), dei/ (4 times), bou,lomai (twice), dianeu,w, basta,zw, evle,gcw, lupe,w, avgnoe,w, ma,comai, u`polamba,nw, gi,gnomai, kakologe,w, kateu,comai, qe,lw, kei/mai, kaqe,zomai, h`suca,zw, me,llw, cra,w, avdike,w, shmai,nw, du,namai, and kataplh,ssw. There does not appear to be any pattern discernable here, except for the high frequency of eivmi,, e;cw, and le,gw. Only 3 discourse-imperfects occur in conditional sentences, but 9 occur within relative clauses. One example will suffice. Vita Aesopi G 19 ouvk oi=da\ dokw/ de. o[ti o` new,nhto,j evstin, o` sapro,j, o` avrw.n to.n gou,rgaqon, o]n ouvk evba,stazen kth/noj. ‘I don’t know, but I think it’s the newcomer, the worthless one who took the basket which a mule couldn’t carry.’ 3.4 Chariton There are 145 imperfect indicatives in Chariton chapter 1, 135 of which occur in narrative proper. There are 10 found in discourse: 9 in direct discourse, and 1 in indirect discourse. Thus, 93.1 percent of imperfects occur in narrative proper and 6.9 percent occur in discourse. The verbs found in discourse are: eivmi, (3 times), za,w, ovkne,w, dei/, fobe,w, ovneiropole,w, qe,lw, and e;cw. Again we observe the relatively high frequency of eivmi, among the imperfects within discourse. Of the 10 imperfects found in discourse, 4 of these occur in relative clauses.

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3.5 Oxyrhynchus Papyri There are only 21 imperfect indicatives to be found in our sample from the Oxyrhynchus collection. Of these, 17 occur within narrative proper (80.9 percent) and 4 within direct discourse (19.1 percent). Those verbs occurring within discourse are pre,pw, eivmi, (twice), and poie,w. One of these occurs within a conditional sentence. 3.6 Thucydides Of the 166 imperfect indicatives in our sample of Thucydides, 161 occur in narrative proper with 20 of these introducing discourse. There is 1 imperfect in direct discourse, 3 within indirect discourse, and 1 in authorial discourse. Below is the example within authorial discourse. Thucydides 1.97.2 e;graya de. auvta. kai. th.n evkbolh.n tou/ lo,gou evpoihsa,mhn dia. to,de, o[ti toi/j pro. evmou/ a[pasin evklipe.j tou/to h=n to. cwri,on kai. h' ta. pro. tw/n Mhdikw/n `Ellhnika. xuneti,qesan h' auvta. ta. Mhdika,. I have made a digression to write of these matters since this period was omitted by all my predecessors, who have confined their narratives either to Hellenic affairs before the Persian War or to the Persian War itself. Thus 97 percent of imperfects occur in narrative proper, and 3 percent occur within discourse of some kind. The imperfects occurring in discourse are prosfe,rw, eivmi, (twice), avnali,skw, and doke,w. 3.7 Lysias There are 34 imperfect indicatives in the sample from Lysias, all of which occur in narrative proper. While 19 of these introduce discourse, none are found within it. From our source texts, it is evident that the imperfect indicative is primarily a narrative proper tense-form, though it is capable of operating within discourse as well. Within discourse, there does not appear to be any pattern of usage, apart from the high frequency of eivmi,. While John demonstrates a large number of these discourse-imperfects functioning within

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conditional sentences, this is not a shared characteristic with the other documents.8 4. Imperfectivity and remoteness That the imperfect indicative is a narrative proper tense-form is not a disputed fact; rather, the reason for its usage mostly within narrative proper certainly is. Those maintaining a tense-based view of the imperfect indicative may simply point to the near universal past temporal reference of the imperfect. The reason it occurs in narrative proper more than discourse is because it encodes past time, which naturally suits narrative proper because of its characteristically past timeframe. Indeed, the imperfect is one of the most consistent tense-forms in its temporal reference, with the future tenseform being the only one more consistent. While the tense-based approach is on stronger ground with the imperfect than with the present indicative, it is argued here that the spatial category of remoteness is nevertheless able to provide stronger power of explanation than tense-based approaches when it comes to the usage of the imperfect. The spatial category of remoteness may be understood as the reason that the imperfect occurs most often in narrative proper. It was argued in chapter two that discourse creates an imperfective-proximate context, meaning that the reader is drawn inside the narrative and the conversation is presented as unfolding before the eyes of the reader. This explains the dominant usage of the proximate-imperfective present tense-form within such contexts. However, narrative proper may be described as a remote-perfective context, as the narrative sequence is presented externally and at a distance; the reader is not drawn inside the narrative, but observes the narrative as a series of events moving from one to the next, regardless of the time involved between sequenced events. It is argued here that the imperfect indicative is a remoteimperfective tense-form, with its remoteness making it a strong choice for narrative proper contexts. Remote imperfectivity is represented by this diagram: ––––––– 8

Since our concern is with semantic value and its function in wider discourse-analysis, the various Aktionsart uses of the imperfect are not explored here. These uses are described by Wallace with labels such as instantaneous, progressive, ingressive, iterative, customary, and conative imperfect; Ibid. 540–53. These are pragmatic expressions of the verb’s semantic value expressed not so much on the macro but on the micro level, thus precluding them from our sphere of interest.

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Figure 4: Remote Imperfectivity

The unfolding event or state

The viewpoint

It may be asked at this point why a remote-imperfective form would be employed in a remote-perfective context; this issue will be explored below. However, it is worth investigating the remoteness element of the tense-form before looking at the implications of its imperfective aspect. Porter was first to make a developed case for the remoteness of the imperfect indicative and this concept has been explored in the work of Millhouse on the imperfect, and Decker on the temporal reference of the verbal system.9 Millhouse describes remoteness in the following way: A variety of different factors could classify as remoteness. Obviously, there is temporal remoteness. There is also logical remoteness, which a non-temporal view gives to conative situations. An action did not reach its expected end. The remote Imperfect Remoteness in narrative could be a speaker’s intent to add important details outside the main flow of the story. Anything that has a tendency to distance or diminish the context in the eyes of the speaker from some other feature (usually the Present form) is remoteness.10

––––––– 9

10

Porter, Verbal Aspect, 95; Roy R. Millhouse, ‘The Use of the Imperfect Verb Form in the New Testament: An Investigation into Aspectual and Tense Relationships in Hellenistic Greek’ (M.A. thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1999); Decker, Temporal Deixis. Millhouse, ‘Use of the Imperfect’, 58–59.

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4.1 Temporal reference Porter, Millhouse, and Decker suggest remoteness as an alternative semantic value to tense; rather than grammatically encoding imperfective aspect and past tense, the imperfect encodes imperfective aspect and remoteness.11 However, as mentioned above, the temporal reference of the imperfect indicative is difficult to disprove, since it is quite consistently past-referring.12 This leads Olsen to the conclusion that the imperfect is a past tense, and she argues that past temporal reference is an uncancelable feature of the verb.13 Decker counters, however, that Olsen is incorrect in this evaluation as there are in fact non-past referring imperfects, and two of his examples are given here along with some of his comment on each example. Galatians 4:20 h;qelon de. parei/nai pro.j u`ma/j a;rti kai. avlla,xai th.n fwnh,n mou( o[ti avporou/mai evn u`mi/nÅ I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. ‘This analysis [of the imperfect being present referring] can be supported by the deictic indicator a;rti (now), as well as the thrust of the context. Paul is not describing a previous desire […], nor a possible desire, but a present one’.14 Acts 25:22 VAgri,ppaj de. pro.j to.n Fh/ston\ evboulo,mhn kai. auvto.j tou/ avnqrw,pou avkou/saiÅ au;rion( fhsi,n( avkou,sh| auvtou/Å Agrippa said to Festus, ‘I would like to hear this man myself.’ He replied, ‘Tomorrow you will hear him.’ ‘A statement in this context that Agrippa at one time would have liked to have heard Paul makes little sense—the statement expresses to Festus a request to hear Paul.’15

––––––– 11 12

13 14 15

See § 4.1.1 below for the discussion on the role of the augment. ‘Only about eighteen instances in the New Testament could likely be examples of nonpast narrative Imperfects.’ Millhouse, ‘Use of the Imperfect’, 73. Olsen, Aspect, 227–30. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 46. Ibid. 46.

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Decker goes on to argue that not only is past temporal reference cancelable even for the imperfect indicative, but remoteness is a better category to explain its usage anyway.16 Consequently, it is not the burden of this section to disprove the notion of tense in the imperfect indicative, as others have tried to do; rather, it is to show that remoteness simply provides a better fit than does tense.17

––––––– 16

17

On the above examples, Decker uses Fanning’s interpretation of these uses of the imperfect against him. Fanning ‘lists these two texts as examples of the desiderative imperfect (a subclass of conative) and says that with verbs of desiring or wishing the imperfect may have the sense of “to be on the verge of wanting”, “to contemplate the desire, but fail to bring oneself actually to the point of wishing”. He explains the time reference rhetorically: “a present situation is portrayed as though past, in order to make it more remote and thus reduce the force of the statement” although the time is actually present. It is not clear why a temporal rhetorical shift is necessary to explain these uses; the remoteness is adequately explained by the imperfect itself and the time is better understood in these contexts as present.’ Ibid. 46–47. Incidentally, Hooker finds many non-past-referring imperfects in the wider Greek literature, such as in Homer, Aristophanes, Plato, and Aristotle. On Homer: ‘Hence it appears that, while some of the early examples show an imperfect relating to a time anterior to the moment of speaking, in others the imperfect cannot readily be associated with the past but must refer to the present as well as to the past.’ James T. Hooker, ‘Some Uses of the Greek Imperfect’, in Historical Philology: Greek, Latin, and Romance: Papers in Honor of Oswald Szemerenyi II (ed. Bela Brogyanyi and Reiner Lipp; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1992), 51; on Aristophanes: ‘The frequency with which Aristophanes attaches a present meaning to an imperfect, especially in the context of a certain set phrase, suggests that this usage may have belonged to the Attic vernacular’, 54; on Plato: ‘The third type to be considered is the so-called philosophical imperfect, that is to say the Platonic use of h=n […] to state an evident truth. Such a statement usually sums up a section of the argument. This imperfect is accounted for on the supposition that the particular truth obtained all along but has only now been revealed as a result of the discussion. Although this explanation is widely accepted, I believe it to be mistaken. The mistake arises from the conviction that whenever the imperfect is used it must have some reference to the past. Remove that assumption, and the way lies open for a juster appreciation of the “philosophical” imperfect. I think it can be shown that Plato’s h=n refers not to a certain time, but to a certain quality, of existence: not that such-and-such a truth obtained in the past but that it always obtains, outside time’, 58 [italics are original]; on Aristotle: ‘This “timeless” h=n was taken over by the philosophers when they wished to speak of reality, as opposed to surmise or mere appearance; and an h=n of the same type was incorporated in Aristotle’s to. ti h=n ei=nai to convey the essential nature of a thing’, 63.

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4.1.1 The augment. Before demonstrating this better fit of remoteness over tense, we must allow a brief excursus. If one is to argue that a remoteimperfective understanding of the imperfect tense-form is better able to explain its usage in narrative proper than is the tense-based view, it is necessary to defend this understanding from one of the more powerful arguments in favour of tense, derived from morphology: the past-referring function of the augment. T. V. Evans criticizes Porter’s treatment of the augment as being ‘surprisingly brief’;18 since Porter has abandoned the tense-based view of the Greek verbal system, ‘the onus is surely on him to disprove consensus opinion’.19 This is a fair criticism of Porter; as Evans notes, his argument is also largely based on the outdated work of Drewitt.20 Decker, however, defends Porter’s position from other detractors (he is unaware of Evans’ critique; see n. 23 below), and suggests that it is merely a ‘widespread assumption’ that the augment is an indicator of past time, which ‘does not appear to have been formally argued’.21 His best contribution to the debate is recognizing the circularity of the traditional view: It appears to be an assumption predicated on a temporal view of the verb. If so, then the argument is circular: the Greek verb expresses time because the augment is a past time marker; the augment is a past time marker because it is used on past time verbs.22

Surely Decker has a point. With the absence of formal argumentation, the traditional view can only be an assumption. Perhaps the most robust defence of the traditional view, however, is given by Evans, and it is worth outlining his argument at length.23 Evans sketches the diachronic development of the augment, beginning with its appearance in the Indo––––––– 18 19 20

21 22

23

Evans, Verbal Syntax, 45. Ibid. 49–50. J. A. J. Drewitt, ‘The Augment in Homer’, Classical Quarterly 6 (1912), 44–59, 104–20; Porter, Verbal Aspect, 208–9; Evans, Verbal Syntax, 47–49. Decker, Temporal Deixis, 39. Ibid. 39. Also McKay: ‘Similarly there are no means of proving what was the original meaning of the augment attached to secondary forms, but the common assumption that it signifies pastness seems to be contrary to the linguistic facts observable in the extant texts.’ McKay, ‘Aspectual Usage’, 193. It is disappointing that interaction between Evans and Decker was not possible since their works were both published in 2001.

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European verbal systems in Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Phrygian, and Greek, noting its beginning as an independent particle which ‘later became attached as a prefix to “past” tenses of the indicative’.24 Lack of consistency with the augment gave way to consistent usage: In the artificial poetic language of Homer, as in Vedic Sanskrit, we have a mixture of earlier unaugmented and later augmented verbal forms. The feature has become grammaticalized in Classical Greek, and especially in Attic it is a necessary element of imperfect, aorist, and pluperfect indicative forms. Classical Sanskrit displays a similar development.25

Post-Classical usage ‘displays a new instability in its orthographic representation’,26 which is accounted for by phonetic change and attendant developments. Additionally, Omission in the pluperfect is probably linked to the general decay of that tense form and is unreliable evidence for the specific history of the augment. The later shift from pitch to stress accent and subsequent weakening of pretonic initial vowels has led to the preservation generally only of accented augments in Modern Greek.27

Evans displays an impressive grasp of the development of the augment. In terms of its temporal reference, however, the ‘assumption’ is nevertheless evident: ‘With regard to function, the augment is usually taken as a temporal marker indicating past time.’28 Evans’ refutation of Porter’s appeal to the omission of the augment in Homer, however, is quite convincing: The mixed nature of Homeric language provides no reliable evidence for the diachronic development. In addition, choice of form is not made purely for metrical purposes, but also for stylistic effects. The omission of the augment in Homer is an archaism.29

The difficulty of disproving that the augment is an indicator of past time (because it is sometimes omitted) is that there are explanations for its omissions, as Evans demonstrates with his treatment of the omissions in ––––––– 24 25 26 27 28 29

Evans, Verbal Syntax, 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 46–47. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48–49.

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Homer. Rather, I regard it as pointless to try to disprove the theory on the basis of the occasional omission of the augment. If, however, the theory that the augment is an indicator of past time is based on an assumption, then another theory based on a different assumption may be equally valid. As McKay suggested long ago,30 it is here proposed that the augment is an indicator of remoteness rather than past time. This proposal does not contradict the arguments put forth by Evans as to the augment’s development, but merely supplants the value of remoteness for the value of temporal reference; indeed, once that transfer is made, Evans’ arguments may defend remoteness in the same way that they defend temporal reference. When the augment is omitted there are explanations available that account for its omission, thus the semantic value of remoteness in remote forms is not cancelled by its absence. Just as the augment is understood traditionally as an indicator of past time in aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect forms, so too is it here taken to be an indicator of remoteness in aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect forms.31 Evans anticipates this suggestion, arguing that ‘Connecting the augment with remoteness would still fail to explain augmentation of the aorist indicative, since non-indicative aorist forms are characteristically unaugmented.’32 This may be answered in the same way that temporal reference is defended: outside the indicative mood there is no temporal reference and therefore no augment; I believe that outside the indicative mood remoteness is not grammaticalized and therefore there is no augment. While aspect itself is fully operational across non-indicative verbs, remoteness

––––––– 30 31

32

McKay, ‘Perfect Use’, 19, n. 22. A level of agreement may be reached in that Evans endeavours to maintain a semantic contribution of the morphological augment for the Koine period, as is maintained here. For the complete divergence of morphology and semantics in regard to the augment, see Olsen: ‘The relation of tense and aspect to the Koine morphology is not straightforward in my analysis […]. For example, the e- prefix or “augment,” which marked past tense in Ancient Greek […] characterizes both the tenseless aorist and the past tense imperfect, but it is absent from the pluperfect by the Koine period. The divergence of morphology and semantics is characteristic of other systems as well.’ Olsen, Aspect, 270, n. 59. While this approach may undercut the debate, it also demonstrates that Olsen’s model lacks explanatory power in relation to the augment. Evans, Verbal Syntax, 47, n. 149.

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as its own distinct category is restricted to the indicative mood, just as past tense has been so regarded within traditional approaches.33 In conclusion then, the temporal reference of the augment has not been disproved; instead it is here assumed that the augment grammaticalizes remoteness rather than assuming that it grammaticalizes past time. As such, the traditional position is not to be rejected simply because it is based upon an assumption. Rather, I propose that this assumption may be supplanted by another. Having made this alternate assumption, we return to the suggestion that a spatial understanding of the imperfect is preferable to a temporal understanding because of its greater explanatory power of usage, as will now be demonstrated. 4.2 Imperfective narrative proper uses 4.2.1 Background information. If it is accepted that narrative sequences create perfective contexts, in which events are related from an external viewpoint, it must be asked why the imperfect indicative, which encodes imperfective aspect, is dominantly a narrative proper tense-form. The answer lies in the nature of the interaction between aspects, and how the opposition between perfective and imperfective aspects enables narratives to operate in a nuanced way.34 If, by creating a perfective context, an author is able to relate events in quick sequence, s/he is able to provide related material with use of an imperfective context. This related material may be supplemental information that explains why certain events are taking place, what a particular character may be thinking or how they are motivated, or other types of information that provide the reader with a wider understanding than simply that these events took place. Hopper expresses this function of supplemental or backgrounded information: Backgrounded clauses do not themselves narrate, but instead they support, amplify, or COMMENT ON the narration. In a narration, the author is asserting the

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34

It is my current intention that a volume treating verbal aspect in non-indicative verbs will follow this volume, in which such claims will be dealt with more fully. Aspect performs a narrative function at the textual level. ‘Here it may serve to indicate discourse “seams” and sections as well as to indicate prominence (sometimes referred to as saliency) by either foregrounding or backgrounding various statements. These are significant issues that deserve extended treatment’; Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 53. See also Eva Hedin, ‘The Type-Referring Function of the Imperfective’, in Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe (ed. Östen Dahl; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000), 235.

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Obviously the ability to communicate this kind of information successfully is a key element in the narrative genre; it is a part of storytelling that prevents narrative from becoming a mere report of sequential action. Hopper argues that this phenomenon is a universal feature across languages.36 It will be argued in the next chapter that the mainline of narrative proper structure is carried by perfective contexts and, therefore, by the aorist tenseform in most cases. It is argued here that offline supplemental or background information is carried by imperfective contexts and, therefore, by the imperfect tense-form.37 Fanning notes this usage: ‘perfective (aorist) verbs indicate sequenced events occurring one after another as the “main line” of the narrative, while imperfective verbs indicate simultaneous occurrences, which fill in background circumstances of the narrative’.38 Offline material occurs alongside the sequence of mainline action filling in details, offering comment, and providing background. The presentation of such offline ––––––– 35 36

37

38

Hopper, ‘Foregrounding’, 215–16 [emphases are original]. ‘It is evidently a universal of narrative discourse that in any extended text an overt distinction is made between the language of the actual story line and the language of supportive material which does not itself narrate the main events. I refer to the former— the parts of the narrative which relate events belonging to the skeletal structure of the discourse—as FOREGROUND and the latter as BACKGROUND.’ Ibid. 213. It is to be noted (as was done more extensively in chapter one, § 2.4) that Hopper’s terminology is the reverse of Jeffrey T. Reed, ‘Identifying Theme in the New Testament: Insights from Discourse Analysis’, in Porter, Discourse Analysis, 75–101, and RR, ‘Discourse’, 181–99. It is also noted that these terms refer to pragmatic function, rather than semantic qualities; see Randall Buth, ‘Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax’, in Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (ed. Walter R. Bodine; The Society of Biblical Literature: Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1995), 87. ‘It is quite common for languages to realize the foreground–background distinction through a specialized verb morphology’; Hopper, ‘Aspect and Foregrounding’, 216. This has been observed, for example, in Italian: ‘The Imperfect is normally employed in imperfective contexts’; Pier Marco Bertinetto, ‘Temporal Reference, Aspect and Actionality: Their Neutralization and Interactions, Mostly Exemplified in Italian’, in BBL, 131, and in French; Lene Schøsler, ‘Did Aktionsart Ever “Compensate” Verbal Aspect in Old and Middle French?’, in BBL, 175. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 19.

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material naturally slows down the narrative sequence, in similar manner to direct discourse (see chapter two, § 4), because it pauses the reporting of sequenced events in order to supply supplementary material.39 This also, again like discourse, has the effect of drawing the reader into the narrative as an internal view is presented. A few examples of this supplemental function will suffice. In these portions the imperfect indicatives are underlined and the aorist indicatives are italicized in order to compare their functions in the narrative proper.40 Luke 9:42–45 e;ti de. prosercome,nou auvtou/ e;rrhxen auvto.n to. daimo,nion kai. sunespa,raxen\ evpeti,mhsen de. o` VIhsou/j tw/| pneu,mati tw/| avkaqa,rtw| kai. iva,sato to.n pai/da kai. avpe,dwken auvto.n tw/| patri. auvtou/Å 43 evxeplh,ssonto de. pa,ntej evpi. th/| megaleio,thti tou/ qeou/Å Pa,ntwn de. qaumazo,ntwn evpi. pa/sin oi-j evpoi,ei ei=pen pro.j tou.j maqhta.j auvtou/\ 44 qe,sqe u`mei/j eivj ta. w=ta u`mw/n tou.j lo,gouj tou,touj\ o` ga.r ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou me,llei paradi,dosqai eivj cei/raj avnqrw,pwnÅ 45 oi` de. hvgno,oun to. r`h/ma tou/to kai. h=n parakekalumme,non avpV auvtw/n i[na mh. ai;sqwntai auvto,( kai. evfobou/nto evrwth/sai auvto.n peri. tou/ r`h,matoj tou,touÅ While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astounded at the majesty of God. While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, 44 ‘Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be delivered into human hands.’ 45 But they did not understand this saying. Its meaning was concealed from them, so that they would not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

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40

‘At the same time the presentive [imperfective aspect] tends to slow down a narrative, since everything must be observed and reported in progress, as it unfolds; also, nothing is seen as a discrete total event, a significant change which affects the course of the narrative. For such a view the constative [perfective aspect] is eminently suitable. On the other hand, by gaining an overview of a complete action as a mere imprint, a dead shell, as it were, the dynamic quality of the report is lost. By a skillful combination of the two, it was possible to establish a frame of reference through the use of the presentive, then utilize the position of the observer outside that frame to report crucial events as accomplished facts.’ Lloyd, Anatomy, 83–84. In the first example, the imperfects evpoi,ei (v.43) and h=n (v.45) are excluded as the former is within indirect discourse and the latter forms part of a pluperfect periphrastic construction.

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Notice here that the mainline is carried by the aorists threw, convulsed, rebuked, healed, gave, and said; these verbs convey the sequence of events in the narrative proper. However, the imperfects astounded, not understand, and afraid do not convey mainline action, rather they provide supplementary material. We are told of the disciples’ reactions to the actions that have taken place and to Jesus’ words, and that they were afraid to ask him about his saying. This information does not contribute to the mainline of the narrative proper, but rather gives the reader an inside view into the thought-world of the disciples. Luke 19:2–7 Kai. ivdou. avnh.r ovno,mati kalou,menoj Zakcai/oj( kai. auvto.j h=n avrcitelw,nhj kai. auvto.j plou,sioj\ 3 kai. evzh,tei ivdei/n to.n VIhsou/n ti,j evstin kai. ouvk hvdu,nato avpo. tou/ o;clou( o[ti th/| h`liki,a| mikro.j h=nÅ 4 kai. prodramw.n eivj to. e;mprosqen avne,bh evpi. sukomore,an i[na i;dh| auvto.n o[ti evkei,nhj h;mellen die,rcesqaiÅ 5 kai. w`j h=lqen evpi. to.n to,pon( avnable,yaj o` VIhsou/j ei=pen pro.j auvto,n\ Zakcai/e( speu,saj kata,bhqi( sh,meron ga.r evn tw/| oi;kw| sou dei/ me mei/naiÅ 6 kai. speu,saj kate,bh kai. u`pede,xato auvto.n cai,rwnÅ 7 kai. ivdo,ntej pa,ntej diego,gguzon le,gontej o[ti para. a`martwlw/| avndri. eivsh/lqen katalu/saiÅ A man was there named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for I must stay at your house today.’ 6 So he quickly came down and welcomed him gladly. 7 All who saw it grumbled, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’ Again we observe that the mainline action is carried by aorist indicatives: climbed, came, said, came down, and welcomed. The imperfect indicatives, however, portray supplementary material: they are used to describe Zacchaeus and his desire to see Jesus in verse 3; h;mellen is part of a clause that explains why Zacchaeus climbed the tree: ‘because he [Jesus] was going to pass that way’ (v.3); the reaction of the crowd is given with diego,gguzon (v.7). Again, these imperfects provide an inside view in order to understand better and appreciate the sequence of events. John 5:14–16 meta. tau/ta eu`ri,skei auvto.n o` VIhsou/j evn tw/| i`erw/| kai. ei=pen auvtw/|\ i;de u`gih.j ge,gonaj( mhke,ti a`ma,rtane( i[na mh. cei/ro,n soi, ti ge,nhtaiÅ 15 avph/lqen o` a;nqrwpoj kai. avnh,ggeilen toi/j VIoudai,oij o[ti VIhsou/j evstin o`

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poih,saj auvto.n u`gih/Å 16 kai. dia. tou/to evdi,wkon oi` VIoudai/oi to.n VIhsou/n( o[ti tau/ta evpoi,ei evn sabba,tw|Å Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 This was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. The mainline is carried by the aorists said, went away, and told in verses 14–16. Verse 16 provides a clear example of supplementary material portrayed by imperfects, which tells the reader why the Jews were persecuting Jesus. These three examples clearly demonstrate the supplementary function of the imperfect indicative in narrative proper.41 Offline information is given that enables the reader to understand better the sequence of events or significant insights into the unfolding story. This is also Rijksbaron’s conclusion: […] the imperfect essentially has a discourse function: the narrative is interrupted, and the imperfect carries it over, as it were, to another part of the text. Or, to put it differently, the imperfect enables the author to dissociate the narrative moment from the action moment of the states of affairs that are evoked by the imperfect. […] This dissociation allowed the author to insert, at a given point in the narrative, some piece of information that he considered relevant at that juncture, be it information that falls outside the story proper […]42

The essential distinction between offline information and discourse is its function in narrative texts. The function of discourse is clear: a communicative event is unfolded before the reader’s eyes as though the reader were witnessing the speech-act. It is, using my terminology, distinctly proximate. However, offline, or background, information is not proximate; events are not presented immediately before the reader, as though occurring before the reader’s eyes, but rather information is provided to fill out the sequence of events with a broader appreciation of the state of affairs. While the presentation of such information draws in the reader, as does discourse, ––––––– 41

42

The same phenomenon is observed in Mark; see Cecil S. Emden, ‘St. Mark’s Use of the Imperfect Tense’, Expository Times 65 (1953–1954), 148. Rijksbaron, ‘Imperfect’, 253. Similarly, Miller: ‘Not uncommon is the use of the Greek imperfect in explanatory dependent sentences’. C. W. E. Miller, ‘The Imperfect and the Aorist in Greek’, American Journal of Philology 16 (1895), 152.

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the remoteness inherent in perfective narrative sequence is retained in offline sections, whereas in discourse this remoteness gives way to proximity. It is concluded that the distinction between perfective and imperfective contexts explains one significant narrative proper usage of the imperfect. Whereas the aorist is used for perfective contexts, the imperfect is used for imperfective contexts.43 Of course, this pattern reveals pragmatic functions of both tense-forms, which are easily cancelable and not absolute. The offline usage of the imperfect tense-form is a pragmatic outworking of its semantic value. The imperfective aspect (which is semantic) of the imperfect indicative makes this tense-form better suited to supplemental or offline information (which is a pragmatic function) than narrative sequence. Similarly, the distinction between imperfective-proximate and imperfective-remote contexts is consistent with the nature of the opposition between imperfect and present tense-forms. While the present indicative is employed in discourse, the spatial value of remoteness causes the imperfect indicative to be better suited to offline narrative proper situations. 4.2.2 Mainline narrative proper. The function of the imperfect indicative in supplementary portions is not its only pragmatic function in narrative proper contexts. While it was argued above that the imperfect is attracted to imperfective contexts that are offline, imperfects are also able to function within the mainline of narrative proper alongside the aorist, which is the dominate mainline tense-form. A few examples will suffice, with aorists italicized and imperfects underlined. Luke 2:7 kai. e;teken to.n ui`o.n auvth/j to.n prwto,tokon( kai. evsparga,nwsen auvto.n kai. avne,klinen auvto.n evn fa,tnh|( dio,ti ouvk h=n auvtoi/j to,poj evn tw/| katalu,matiÅ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. ––––––– 43

While this does not constitute ‘a stringent rule about the choice between the imperfect and the aorist’, which Bakker searches for yet does not find, it nevertheless constitutes a pattern of usage that is instructive. W. F. Bakker, ‘A Remark on the Use of the Imperfect and Aorist in Herodotus’, Mnemosyne Series 4, 21 (1968), 28. Slightly better is W. B. Sedgwick, ‘Some Uses of the Imperfect in Greek’, Classical Quarterly 34 (1940), 118–22, and idem, ‘The Use of the Imperfect in Herodotus’, Classical Quarterly New Series 7 (1957), 113–17.

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While h=n here provides supplementary information explaining why Jesus was laid in a manger (there was no room in the inn), avne,klinen does not provide supplemental information but rather seems to display a function equivocal to the aorists. Luke 24:30 kai. evge,neto evn tw/| katakliqh/nai auvto.n metV auvtw/n labw.n to.n a;rton euvlo,ghsen kai. kla,saj evpedi,dou auvtoi/j When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Here the actions of blessing the bread and giving the bread are both mainline actions, though the former is conveyed by the aorist euvlo,ghsen, while the latter is conveyed by the imperfect evpedi,dou. The imperfect is not providing supplementary information. John 4:30 evxh/lqon evk th/j po,lewj kai. h;rconto pro.j auvto,nÅ They left the town and were coming to him. The aorist and imperfect both conveying mainline action; it is difficult to envisage the imperfect as conveying supplemental information. Chariton 1.1.15 oi` de. gonei/j to.n numfi,on eivsh,gagon pro.j th.n parqe,non. o` me.n ou=n Caire,aj prosdramw.n auvth.n katefi,lei. His parents brought the bridegroom to the girl. Then Chaereas ran and kissed her. Again we see mainline action carried by the aorist and imperfect. From these brief observations it is deduced that the imperfect indicative is not an inappropriate choice for perfective contexts alongside the aorist. It may be queried, therefore, whether the distinction between mainline and offline sections of narrative proper actually does have bearing upon whether the imperfect is used or not, since it has now been demonstrated that the imperfect occurs in both mainline and offline contexts. Related to this is whether the description of mainline as perfective and offline as imperfective is accurate, since the (imperfective) imperfect indicative can be used in both settings. However, as is asserted in the previous chapter, aspectual contexts are capable of employing either perfective or imperfective aspects. An imperfective context does not require the use of only imperfective verbs, but

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rather an imperfective context is related to the function of a section of narrative proper within the narrative text; if it draws in the reader (for the purpose of providing supplementary information, for example) and gives an inside view, then the context is imperfective. What is significant, however, is the dominance of the imperfect tense-form in (remote-)imperfective contexts. While the aorist may also appear in these contexts, it is the imperfect that is most commonly found. By the same token, the perfective contexts of mainline sections are carried by aorists, and while the imperfect may also be found in such sections, the aorist is the dominant tense-form. The function of the imperfect indicative in perfective mainline contexts, therefore, is simply to provide an imperfective contrast, which is necessary even in perfective contexts, whereas it functions as the main verb in imperfective offline contexts. None of this undermines the semantic components that constitute the imperfect tense-form; we have simply observed differing pragmatic usages that are compatible with the form’s semantic nature. While offline material is the most natural usage of the imperfect, it is not restricted to such usage. 4.3 Conditional sentences One of the uses of the imperfect indicative observed above in John is within second-class conditional sentences. Wallace, who maintains a tense- and aspect-based view of the Greek verbal system, says that ‘The present contraryto-fact conditional uses the imperfect in both the protasis and apodosis. It refers to something that is not true in the present time (from the speaker’s portrayal).’44 Millhouse observes that ‘of the 47 instances of the Imperfect used in conditionals, 31 are present referring or gnomic, while 16 are past referring’.45 The present temporal reference of these imperfects in conditional sentences is not readily explainable with a tense-based understanding of the verb. Indeed this usage is not easily explained at all by means of the traditional understanding. Millhouse, however, suggests that remoteness is able to explain this usage. […] the Imperfect in conditionals is considered to indicate an unreal or unfulfilled condition. […] This unreal or contrary to fact use of the Imperfect can be explained by the concept of remoteness. Instead of temporal remoteness, as is often seen in

––––––– 44 45

Wallace, Grammar, 695 [italics are original]. Millhouse, ‘Use of the Imperfect’, 64.

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narratives using the Imperfect, conditional statements are examples of logical remoteness. Instead of then vs. now, the Imperfect represents unreal vs. real.46

This concept of logical remoteness captures well the sense of the second-class condition. In the sentence ku,rie( eiv h=j w-de ouvk a;n mou avpe,qanen o` avdelfo,j ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’ (John 11:32), the reader is forced to envision an imaginary situation that did not take place in reality or in the world of the narrative text. Though the reader has been drawn inside the narrative through the reporting of the direct discourse (and thus the creation of an imperfective-proximate context), the reader is then required to step outside the narrative altogether and posit an alternative narrative sequence in order to understand the force of the complaint to Jesus: if he had come earlier, Mary’s brother would not be dead. The narrative informs us that Jesus had not come earlier, but now we are forced to imagine an alternate narrative sequence in which Jesus does come earlier. The creating of an unreal situation evokes a remote context that is not only removed from the reader but is removed from reality itself. In this case the normal pragmatic expression of remoteness (past temporal reference) is not implicated; rather, unreality is implicated by logical remoteness in this context. This is the case with all second-class conditional sentences as, by definition, they are predicated upon unreality; they express ‘the assumption of an untruth (for the sake of argument)’.47 That remoteness is core to this kind of conditional sentence is supported by the fact that the aorist and imperfect tense-forms are usually the only ones used in second-class conditions;48 both are remote tense-forms, one perfective the other imperfective. The present indicative normally would be inappropriate in a second-class conditional sentence because it encodes proximity rather than remoteness, whereas the secondclass condition requires (logical) remoteness in order to be consistent with the unreality it expresses. 4.4 Discourse uses While the main use of the imperfect is within narrative proper, we nevertheless need to account for those that occur within discourse. While the present indicative displays regular uses when it appears outside discourse ––––––– 46 47 48

Ibid. 65 [italics are original]. Wallace, Grammar, 694–96 [italics are original]. Ibid. 695.

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(chapter two), regular uses of the imperfect within discourse account for many, but not all, discourse imperfects. Some imperfects within discourse are accounted for by conditional sentences and, as demonstrated above, this is consistent with the claim that the imperfect indicative grammatically encodes remoteness. Some other imperfects occur within relative clauses, with Aesop containing 9 of these and 4 being found in Luke. Of the remaining discourse imperfects that do not occur within these regular uses, it is possible to understand them as expressing either temporal or logical remoteness. Occasionally discourse requires the expression of past temporal reference, even when not relating embedded narrative, parable or history, and the remoteness of the imperfect may be expressed temporally in order to achieve this. Alternatively, logical remoteness, rather than temporal remoteness, may be required, accounting for some imperfects within discourse. This logical remoteness, as with conditional sentences, may express unreality or a blocked goal, often in conjunction with some other marker of unreality or negation, such as ouv. Three examples will suffice. Luke 13:16 tau,thn de. qugate,ra VAbraa.m ou=san( h]n e;dhsen o` satana/j ivdou. de,ka kai. ovktw. e;th( ouvk e;dei luqh/nai avpo. tou/ desmou/ tou,tou th/| h`me,ra| tou/ sabba,touÈ ‘And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?’ This example demonstrates the imperfect e;dei expressing what should be permissible but is not; the woman ought to be loosed from her bond on the Sabbath, but Jesus’ opponents claim that she should not be healed on the Sabbath. Even though Jesus has healed her on the Sabbath, he is saying that this ought to be allowable in the minds of his opponents rather than forbidden. The imperfect is, therefore, expressing unreality. John 11:14–15 to,te ou=n ei=pen auvtoi/j o` VIhsou/j parrhsi,a\| La,zaroj avpe,qanen( 15 kai. cai,rw diV u`ma/j i[na pisteu,shte( o[ti ouvk h;mhn evkei/\ avlla. a;gwmen pro.j auvto,nÅ Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ John 11:37 tine.j de. evx auvtw/n ei=pan\ ouvk evdu,nato ou-toj o` avnoi,xaj tou.j ovfqalmou.j tou/ tuflou/ poih/sai i[na kai. ou-toj mh. avpoqa,nh|È

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But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’ In John 11:15, the imperfect is used to portray unreality; Jesus was not there when Lazarus died. Similarly, John 11:37 contains a plain statement of unreality: the one who opened the eyes of the blind should have been able to keep Lazarus from dying, but he did not. Thus it is demonstrated that the unreality that pertains to second-class conditional sentences is also apparent in regular discourse, and just as the imperfect may be employed in such conditional sentences, so too is it used to express unreality within discourse. We affirm once again that it is the remoteness of the imperfect indicative that allows such usage, especially when past temporal reference does not explain all of these cases, as demonstrated by Luke 13:16 above, where non-past temporal reference is implicated. 5. Conclusion The imperfect indicative is primarily a narrative proper tense-form, with the main function of indicating supplementary information that is conveyed within offline remote-imperfective contexts. It was argued that this usage is due to the semantic encoding of both imperfective aspect and the spatial value of remoteness within the imperfect tense-form. Imperfective aspect and remoteness are the semantic constituents of the imperfect. The verb’s remoteness makes it a suitable choice for narrative proper, along with the aorist, while its imperfective aspect enables it to contribute to offline contexts. While this usage of the imperfect indicative is its primary function, it can also be used in remote-perfective contexts along with the aorist to convey mainline action, thus providing an imperfective option within remoteperfective contexts. This is the minor usage of the two, and does not contradict the proposed semantic value of imperfectivity. Rather the semantic value of the imperfect leads to its attraction to remote-imperfective contexts, but does not limit it to such contexts. It was argued that while the imperfect is more consistent in its temporal reference than the present indicative, it is still not fully consistent, and the semantic value of remoteness provides more power of explanation than does past temporal reference. Related to this, it is also concluded that the morphological phenomenon of the augment does not necessarily militate against this view, as it may be assumed to be an indicator of remoteness rather than an indicator of past

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time. Finally, it was argued that the remoteness of the imperfect indicative is able to account for its appearance in second-class conditional sentences, since remoteness is able to convey the unreality expressed in such sentences, and such unreality also accounts for some of the imperfects in regular instances of discourse.

CHAPTER FOUR The Aorist Tense-form

1. Introduction The semantic value of the aorist indicative is explored in this chapter, as is the role of this tense-form in mainline narrative proper and discourse. The perfective aspect of the aorist is upheld and a spatial conception of perfective aspect is argued for against temporal descriptions of perfectivity. While seeking to identify the nature of perfective aspect, one major misunderstanding of the aorist, the so-called punctiliar aorist, is critiqued. Our source texts are then examined for patterns of usage of the aorist, concluding that the widespread assertion that the aorist is the dominant narrative proper tense-form is valid. The aorist also has roles within discourse for which traditional understandings of the aorist struggle to account. A theory is postulated in order to explain the usage of the aorist indicative in both narrative proper mainline contexts and discourse situations. 2. Perfective aspect As with the present and imperfect indicatives, the aspectual value of the aorist tense-form is not a controversial issue. Contrary to the present and imperfect tense-forms, however, the aorist is regarded as encoding perfective aspect rather than imperfective aspect. Whereas imperfective aspect is understood as an internal viewpoint, perfective aspect is most simply described as an external viewpoint. As Fanning describes it, ‘the aorist presents an occurrence in summary, viewed as a whole from the outside, without regard for the internal make-up of the occurrence’.1 This description of perfective aspect can be understood as spatial—a point for which Fanning argues insistently; the action is ‘viewed ––––––– 1

Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 97 [italics are original].

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from a vantage-point outside the action’.2 The alternative to an external and spatial understanding of perfective aspect is a temporal conception of it, which Fanning argues against; ‘this relationship between the action and the reference-point from which it is viewed is not primarily a chronological one’; ‘a spatial one fits better, since the distinction is one of proximity vs. distance’.3 Aspect for Olsen, however, ‘represents how an event takes place over time’;4 thus, while not indicating tense, aspect is concerned with the ‘internal temporal constituency of the one situation’.5 Olsen’s temporal conception of perfective aspect is that ‘the ET [event time] intersects the RT [reference time] at the coda [the end point of the action]’.6 While sophisticated and nuanced, her schema’s dependence upon temporal categories is, in my view, a weakness. I have argued already that aspect is best considered a spatial category rather than temporal (again, this is not to be confused with the question of tense, but refers to the definition of aspect); the simplicity and clarity of the spatial definition is attractive to specialists and non-specialists alike, and, as indicated previously, temporal descriptions of aspect are easily confused and conflated with the category of tense (chapter two, § 2). More importantly, a spatial description of aspect has greater power of explanation than does a temporal description; a coda view of situations, in which the ET intersects the RT at the coda, does ––––––– 2 3

4

5

6

Ibid. 27 [italics are original]. Ibid. 27 [italics are original]. Fanning is strong on this point, though he notes the temporal conceptions of aspect submitted by others: ‘Koschmieder argues that aspects are distinctions in how the mind encounters the temporal direction of an event: aspect is a grammatical category for reflecting the relationship of the event to the ‘I’ on a time-line […]. If the mind conceives the ‘I’ moving from past to future towards the event, an imperfect aspect is used; if the mind conceives the event moving from future to past towards the ‘I’, a perfect aspect is used. […] Ruijgh argues that aspect is fundamentally a matter of temporal relationship’; ibid. 20–23. Olsen, Aspect, 7. Tenny defines aspect similarly; ‘aspect covers a wide range of phenomena having to do with the internal temporal structure of the events described by verbs [...]. Aspect refers to the internal temporal properties of the event, such as duration, iterativity, etc.’ Carol L. Tenny, Aspectual Roles and the Syntax–Semantics Interface (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 52; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 3. See also Kimmo Huovila, ‘Towards a Theory of Aspectual Nesting for New Testament Greek’ (M.A. thesis, University of Helsinki, 1999), 2–3. Olsen, Aspect, 6–7; Bernard Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 5. Olsen, Aspect, 59.

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not, in my opinion, explain enough of the usage of the perfective aspect. 2.1 The ‘punctiliar’ aorist Retaining, therefore, a spatial conception of perfective aspect, it is now necessary to address a common misunderstanding of it—the so-called punctiliar aorist. Perfectivity could be described as punctiliarity in the sense that it refers to an event as a whole, or, as some might say, a point. The term punctiliar can only serve for perfectivity, however, if the point is understood to represent an undefined whole. It will not do to use the term punctiliar to refer to once-for-all action; this is not what perfectivity indicates. The misunderstanding has to do with the distinction between a writer’s chosen viewpoint and how an action occurs in reality; ‘Careful grammarians make it clear that the “punctiliar” idea belongs to the writer’s manner of presentation and not necessarily to the action itself.’7 To conflate the manner in which an author chooses to portray an event with the manner in which the event actually took place is to confuse semantics with pragmatics; as Bertinetto notes, ‘Telicity and atelicity are matters of pragmatics rather than semantics.’8 The semantic category of aspect is subjective (though not entirely), and the pragmatic category of Aktionsart is objective (though not entirely; see chapter one, § 4).9 In relation to the aorist indicative, this means that perfective aspect is subjectively chosen by the writer (with lexical limitations taken into consideration), as Chantraine indicates, ‘le choix opéré est dans une large mesure subjectif’,10 but how the action actually unfolds is not a matter of subjective choice; it is a concrete part of reality. The error that some interpreters make is to assume that the ––––––– 7 8

9

10

Frank Stagg, ‘The Abused Aorist’, Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972), 222. Pier Marco Bertinetto, ‘On a Frequent Misunderstanding in the Temporal-Aspectual Domain: the “Perfective–Telic Confusion”’, in Semantic Interfaces: Reference, Anaphora and Aspect (ed. Carlo Cecchetto, Gennaro Chierchia, and Maria Teresa Guasti; Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications, 2001), 199. Bache, ‘Aspect’, 57–72. Reed and Reese express this clearly; Aktionsart ‘works on the assumption that tense-forms are objective description [sic] of an action. Accordingly, an aorist verb represents a punctilliar action (point), a present verb represents a linear action (line), and the perfect represents the present result of a past action (a point and a line).’ RR, ‘Discourse’, 182. Pierre Chantraine, ‘Questions de syntaxe grecque : 1. Encore ,EN AGRAS, 2. Remarques sur l’emploi des thèmes de présent et d’aoriste’, Revue de Philologie 40 (1966), 44.

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subjective choice of the author equates to the concrete occurrence within reality. Rather, ‘the aorist tense has to do with the way in which an action is stated, and not with the action itself’.11 In other words, the aorist indicative does not grammaticalize punctiliar action, as the following examples adequately demonstrate. Romans 5:14 avlla. evbasi,leusen o` qa,natoj avpo. VAda.m me,cri Mwu?se,wj kai. evpi. tou.j mh. a`marth,santaj evpi. tw/| o`moiw,mati th/j paraba,sewj VAda.m o[j evstin tu,poj tou/ me,llontojÅ Yet death reigned from the time of Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. John 2:20 ei=pan ou=n oi` VIoudai/oi\ tessera,konta kai. e]x e;tesin oivkodomh,qh o` nao.j ou-toj( kai. su. evn trisi.n h`me,raij evgerei/j auvto,nÈ The Jews said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it in three days?’ Mark 1:11 kai. fwnh. evge,neto evk tw/n ouvranw/n\ su. ei= o` ui`o,j mou o` avgaphto,j( evn soi. euvdo,khsaÅ And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’ ––––––– 11

Kuehne continues: ‘Unfortunately, exegetes, when interpreting the aorist tense, do not always observe the necessary distinction between the writer’s manner of stating an action and the action itself. […] Carrying the force of the aorist too far, they strive to find punctiliarity in the action itself, and thus draw inferences from the tense which are not warranted. […] But the aorist, since it relates only to the writer’s manner of expression, can be, and is, used in the New Testament for actions which are in themselves nonpunctiliar.’ C. Kuehne, ‘Keeping the Aorist in its Place’, Journal of Theology 16 (1976), 4–5. Perhaps prophetically, McKay clearly expressed the issue in 1965: ‘The aorist, which ancient Greek grammarians named as the residual aspect, expresses an activity as unadorned action. In a context of process this may resolve itself into a single complete or punctiliar action, but it is just as applicable to a long drawn out activity, or to a whole series of repeated actions, when these are viewed in their entirety. The idea of completeness is relevant here, but it is completeness of action as simple action.’ McKay, ‘Perfect Use’, 6. See also C. W. E. Miller, ‘The Imperfect and the Aorist in Greek’, American Journal of Philology 16 (1895), 149; Arlan J. Birkey, ‘A Study of Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek with a Particular Focus on the Aorist Tense’ (M.Th. thesis, Concordia Theological Seminary, 1998), 67; P. V. Pistorius, ‘Some Remarks on the Aorist Aspect in the Greek NT’, Acta Classica 10 (1967), 33–35; Joseph Agar Beet, ‘The Greek Aorist, as Used in the New Testament’, Expositor First Series 11 (1880), 197.

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Thucydides 1.12.4 kai. ;Iwnaj me.n vAqhnai/oi kai. nhsiwtw/n tou.j pollou.j w|;kisan The Athenians colonized Ionia and most of the islands. None of these verses will tolerate a punctiliar action reading; the period between Adam and Moses constitutes an era; the forty-six years of building the temple was hardly a one-off occurrence; to read the Father as pleased with the Son at one point only would not be acceptable to most interpreters; Athens was surely not able to colonize Ionia and most of the islands in an instant.12 This does not deny the possibility of punctiliar Aktionsart as a result of the aorist in combination with certain contextual and lexical factors. While punctiliar Aktionsart may be possible in certain cases, nevertheless the aorist does not grammatically encode punctiliarity on the semantic level.

––––––– 12

Critiquing the use of the aorist indicative within the ‘Holiness Movement’, Maddox says that holiness proponents make reference to the aorist tense in connection with their exposition of holiness as an indicator of the instantaneous nature of sanctification. He notes that the aorist cannot be used ‘in and of itself to prove that an action was of a crisic nature. While the presence of the aorist makes such an interpretation possible, it becomes probable only when the meaning of the verb and the context support it’; Randy L. Maddox, ‘The Use of the Aorist Tense in Holiness Exegesis’, Wesleyan Theological Journal 16 (1981), 106, 117. Smith argues along similar lines; ‘It should be apparent that while an aorist may be used with reference to a completed action, the tense itself does not indicate or imply this.’ Charles R. Smith, ‘Errant Aorist Interpreters’, Grace Theological Journal 2 (1981), 209. However, Smith goes too far in saying that ‘to define the aorist aspect as looking at the action in any way is to deny its basic noncommittal significance’ (213). He wants to protect the a-oristic (undefined) nature of the aorist, but in so doing denies the positive aspectual value of perfectivity conveyed by the aorist indicative. The a-oristic nature of the aorist is best understood as referring to the presentation of an action externally; the aorist does contribute a positive value to the presentation of an action. Smith’s error is to place too much weight on the label aorist, rather than appreciating that narrative does employ the aorist intentionally for its positive contribution. At the other extreme, of course, we must heed Silva’s warning of ‘over-exegeting’ tense-forms; Moisés Silva, God, Language, and Scripture: Reading the Bible in the Light of General Linguistics (Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation 4; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 115– 18.

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3.1 Luke It is commonly observed that the aorist indicative most often occurs in narrative proper, portraying the narrative mainline. Three examples will suffice. Luke 4:9 :Hgagen de. auvto.n eivj VIerousalh.m kai. e;sthsen evpi. to. pteru,gion tou/ i`erou/ kai. ei=pen auvtw/|\ eiv ui`o.j ei= tou/ qeou/( ba,le seauto.n evnteu/qen ka,tw\ He took him to Jerusalem, and stood him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here…’ Luke 15:20 kai. avnasta.j h=lqen pro.j to.n pate,ra e`autou/Å :Eti de. auvtou/ makra.n avpe,contoj ei=den auvto.n o` path.r auvtou/ kai. evsplagcni,sqh kai. dramw.n evpe,pesen evpi. to.n tra,chlon auvtou/ kai. katefi,lhsen auvto,nÅ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and had compassion; he ran and embraced him and kissed him. Luke 22:39 Kai. evxelqw.n evporeu,qh kata. to. e;qoj eivj to. o;roj tw/n evlaiw/n( hvkolou,qhsan de. auvtw/| kai. oi` maqhtai,Å He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. In each example, the key actions are portrayed by the aorist indicative, and this pattern is evident in most narrative proper sections. However, the aorist tense-form is also readily functional within discourse (direct and indirect), as these occurrences demonstrate. Luke 8:46 o` de. VIhsou/j ei=pen\ h[yato, mou, tij( evgw. ga.r e;gnwn du,namin evxelhluqui/an avpV evmou/Å But Jesus said, ‘Some one touched me, for I know that power has gone out from me.’ Luke 11:52 Ouvai. u`mi/n toi/j nomikoi/j( o[ti h;rate th.n klei/da th/j gnw,sewj\ auvtoi. ouvk eivsh,lqate kai. tou.j eivsercome,nouj evkwlu,sateÅ ‘Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key to knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’

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Luke 8:47 ivdou/sa de. h` gunh. o[ti ouvk e;laqen( tre,mousa h=lqen kai. prospesou/sa auvtw/| diV h]n aivti,an h[yato auvtou/ avph,ggeilen evnw,pion panto.j tou/ laou/ kai. w`j iva,qh paracrh/maÅ13 When the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him she declared before all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been instantly healed. It is therefore a fact that the aorist indicative may appear within various parts of a narrative text: in the narrative proper mainline itself, or in direct and indirect discourse. Most aorists, however, occur within narrative proper, and in the mainline of the narrative, but before demonstrating this, we turn to the non-narrative aorist in order to observe any patterned usage thereof. First, the aorist indicative is often used within parables. This should not be surprising since, as indicated in previous chapters, parables adopt the same characteristics found in narrative texts; they, as with any normal narrative text, present states of affairs in ‘a self-contained temporal continuum in which they are anaphorically related to each other’.14 We see this in the following example. Luke 10:30–35 ~Upolabw.n o` VIhsou/j ei=pen\ a;nqrwpo,j tij kate,bainen avpo. VIerousalh.m eivj VIericw. kai. lh|stai/j perie,pesen( oi] kai. evkdu,santej auvto.n kai. plhga.j evpiqe,ntej avph/lqon avfe,ntej h`miqanh/Å 31 kata. sugkuri,an de. i`ereu,j tij kate,bainen evn th/| o`dw/| evkei,nh| kai. ivdw.n auvto.n avntiparh/lqen\ 32 o`moi,wj de. kai. Leui,thj Îgeno,menojÐ kata. to.n to,pon evlqw.n kai. ivdw.n avntiparh/lqenÅ 33 Samari,thj de, tij o`deu,wn h=lqen katV auvto.n kai. ivdw.n evsplagcni,sqh( 34 kai. proselqw.n kate,dhsen ta. trau,mata auvtou/ evpice,wn e;laion kai. oi=non( evpibiba,saj de. auvto.n evpi. to. i;dion kth/noj h;gagen auvto.n eivj pandocei/on kai. evpemelh,qh auvtou/Å 35 kai. evpi. th.n au;rion evkbalw.n e;dwken du,o dhna,ria tw/| pandocei/ kai. ei=pen\ evpimelh,qhti auvtou/( kai. o[ ti a'n prosdapanh,sh|j evgw. evn tw/| evpane,rcesqai, me avpodw,sw soiÅ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now ––––––– 13

14

h=lqen and avph,ggeilen are, of course, aorists, but are not part of the indirect discourse of this verse. Mimo Caenepeel and Marc Moens, ‘Temporal Structure and Discourse Structure’, in Tense and Aspect in Discourse (ed. Co Vet and Carl Vetters; Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 75; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994), 13.

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by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So too a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came near him; and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”’ In this parable the aorist conveys mainline action, just as it does within regular narrative. The parable is, without doubt, an embedded narrative, as one of the characters of Luke’s story assumes the role of narrator. Parables are not the only embedded narratives in Luke, however, as Jesus on occasion recounts history. Luke 17:29 h-| de. h`me,ra| evxh/lqen Lw.t avpo. Sodo,mwn( e;brexen pu/r kai. qei/on avpV ouvranou/ kai. avpw,lesen pa,ntajÅ ‘But on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.’ Second, the aorist indicative in direct discourse is often found in subordinate roles: within subordinate clauses, relative clauses, and conditional sentences. Two examples of each will suffice. Luke 2:29–30 nu/n avpolu,eij to.n dou/lo,n sou( de,spota( kata. to. r`h/ma, sou evn eivrh,nh|\ 30 o[ti ei=don oi` ovfqalmoi, mou to. swth,rio,n sou( ‘Lord, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation…’ Luke 11:1 Kai. evge,neto evn tw/| ei=nai auvto.n evn to,pw| tini. proseuco,menon( w`j evpau,sato( ei=pe,n tij tw/n maqhtw/n auvtou/ pro.j auvto,n\ ku,rie( di,daxon h`ma/j proseu,cesqai( kaqw.j kai. VIwa,nnhj evdi,daxen tou.j maqhta.j auvtou/Å He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ Luke 12:3 avnqV w-n o[sa evn th/| skoti,a| ei;pate evn tw/| fwti. avkousqh,setai( kai. o] pro.j to. ou=j evlalh,sate evn toi/j tamei,oij khrucqh,setai evpi. tw/n dwma,twnÅ

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‘Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed upon the rooftops.’ Luke 12:48 o` de. mh. gnou,j( poih,saj de. a;xia plhgw/n darh,setai ovli,gajÅ panti. de. w-| evdo,qh polu,( polu. zhthqh,setai parV auvtou/( kai. w-| pare,qento polu,( perisso,teron aivth,sousin auvto,nÅ ‘But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded.’ Luke 10:13 Ouvai, soi( Corazi,n( ouvai, soi( Bhqsai?da,\ o[ti eiv evn Tu,rw| kai. Sidw/ni evgenh,qhsan ai` duna,meij ai` geno,menai evn u`mi/n( pa,lai a'n evn sa,kkw| kai. spodw/| kaqh,menoi meteno,hsanÅ ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.’ Luke 19:8 staqei.j de. Zakcai/oj ei=pen pro.j to.n ku,rion\ ivdou. ta. h`mi,sia, mou tw/n u`parco,ntwn( ku,rie( toi/j ptwcoi/j di,dwmi( kai. ei; tino,j ti evsukofa,nthsa avpodi,dwmi tetraplou/nÅ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor; and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I will pay it back fourfold.’ In order to comprehend the overall pattern of usage of the aorist indicative, it is necessary to regard embedded narrative (parable or otherwise) as genuine narrative, even though it occurs within direct discourse.15 However, discourse within embedded narrative (such as when a character within a parable speaks) must be included as discourse rather than narrative. Of Luke’s 1079 aorist indicatives, there are 363 within direct discourse and 18 in indirect discourse, with 162 of those in direct discourse being found in embedded narrative. However, 23 of these are within speech in embedded narrative. With all these considerations taken into account, Luke displays 77.7 percent of aorist indicatives in narrative proper or embedded narrative. ––––––– 15

As such, discourse that contains embedded narrative will be regarded as narrative from this point on. It should be noted that not all parables are storyline parables—that is, they do not portray narrative. These are not regarded as embedded narrative; see Decker’s distinction between storyline and proverbial parables in Decker, Temporal Deixis, 143–48.

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Of the 242 aorist indicatives that occur in either direct or indirect discourse, 42 are found in relative clauses, 33 in subordinate clauses, and 9 in conditional sentences. There are also 4 found in scriptural citations. Excluding the scriptural citations, there are 84 out of 238 aorists in discourse that are in some way subordinate, representing 35.3 percent—over a third. 3.2 John John attests 836 aorist indicatives, 228 of which are in direct discourse. A further 16 aorists are found in indirect discourse, and 21 are in authorial discourse. Here are two examples of aorists occurring within authorial discourse. John 1:16–18 o[ti evk tou/ plhrw,matoj auvtou/ h`mei/j pa,ntej evla,bomen kai. ca,rin avnti. ca,ritoj\ 17 o[ti o` no,moj dia. Mwu?se,wj evdo,qh( h` ca,rij kai. h` avlh,qeia dia. VIhsou/ Cristou/ evge,netoÅ 18 Qeo.n ouvdei.j e`w,raken pw,pote\ monogenh.j qeo.j o` w'n eivj to.n ko,lpon tou/ patro.j evkei/noj evxhgh,satoÅ From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the only God, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. John 21:25 :Estin de. kai. a;lla polla. a] evpoi,hsen o` VIhsou/j( a[tina eva.n gra,fhtai kaqV e[n( ouvdV auvto.n oi=mai to.n ko,smon cwrh/sai ta. grafo,mena bibli,aÅ But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Taking into account, therefore, direct, indirect, and authorial discourse, John attests 68.3 percent of aorist indicatives not in discourse but in narrative proper. This is a lower figure than Luke attests, though the pattern of usage of those aorists within discourse is quite similar. Of the 265 aorists in discourse, 43 are found in subordinate clauses, 36 are in relative clauses, and 20 in conditional sentences. This represents 37.3 percent of the aorists within discourse—more than a third, as with Luke.

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3.3 Vita Aesopi G There are 723 aorist indicatives in Vita Aesopi G, with 221 of these appearing in direct discourse, and 4 in indirect discourse. This means that Vita Aesopi G displays a similar percentage of aorists in narrative proper as John, at 68.9 percent. The usage of the aorists within discourse, however, does not compare favourably with Luke and John. While some aorists do display a subordinate function, there are only 16 in relative clauses, 4 in subordinate clauses, and 4 in conditional sentences, representing 10.6 percent of the aorists within discourse, compared to over 35 percent in Luke and John. 3.4 Chariton Of the 236 aorist indicatives in Chariton book 1, 183 occur within narrative proper (77.5 percent), 52 within direct discourse, and 1 within authorial discourse. Of these aorists occurring in discourse, 6 are found within embedded narrative. We observe 5 of these in Callirhoe’s complaint against Fortune. Chariton 1.14.7–8 avlla. prw/ton me.n to.n evrasth,n mou fone,a evpoi,hsaj\ Caire,aj, o` mhde. dou/lon mhde,pote plh,xaj, evla,ktise kairi,wj me th.n filou/san\ ei=ta, me tumbwru,cwn cersi. pare,dwkaj kai. evk ta,fou proh,gagej eivj qa,lassan kai. tw/n kuma,twn tou.j peirata.j foberwte,rouj evpe,sthsaj. First you made my lover my murderer. Chaereas, who had never struck a slave, seriously kicked me, who loved him. Then you delivered me into the hands of tomb raiders and brought me out from the tomb to the sea and subjected me to pirates more terrible than the waves. The 6 aorists may be regarded as narrative verbs, occurring as they do within embedded narrative, therefore 80 percent of aorist indicatives occur within narrative proper, and 20 percent within discourse. A further three discourse-aorists are found expressing unreality, in the manner discussed in chapter three, § 4.4. Two of these are observed in the following citation.

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Chariton 1.14.7 path.r ga.r a'n evkei/ moi prosh/lqe kai. mh,thr, kai. Caire,aj evpe,speise dakru,wn\ There my father and mother would have come to me, and Chaereas would have poured out his tears. Of the remaining aorists within discourse, 6 occur within relative clauses, 5 within subordinate clauses, and 3 within conditional sentences. These, together with the aorists expressing unreality, account for 36.2 percent of aorists within discourse. 3.5 Oxyrhynchus Papyri There are 204 aorist indicatives in the sample from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Of these, 172 aorists occur within narrative proper, with 31 occurring in direct discourse, and 1 in indirect discourse. Thus, 84.3 percent are within narrative proper, while 15.7 percent are within discourse (direct or indirect). Of the 32 aorist indicatives occurring in discourse, 3 appear within relative clauses, 3 in subordinate clauses, and 2 in conditional sentences, together accounting for 25 percent of discourse-aorists. 3.6 Thucydides Thucydides displays the strongest adherence to the patterns located thus far. Of the 291 aorist indicatives in our sample of Thucydides, 273 are in narrative sections, 4 are in direct discourse, 4 in indirect discourse, and 8 within authorial discourse. This means that 94.1 percent of aorists occur within narrative proper. While being few in number, the aorists found in discourse adhere to the discourse pattern observed in the two Gospels, but even more strongly. Of the 16 aorists found within discourse (direct, indirect, or quasi-), 6 are in relative clauses, and 1 is in a conditional sentence, indicating that 43.8 percent of the aorists within discourse function in some way in a subordinate sense. 3.7 Lysias The section from Lysias attests 32 aorist indicatives, all of which occur in narrative proper.

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4. Perfectivity and remoteness There can be no doubt that the aorist indicative is the dominant narrative proper tense-form in Koine Greek.16 While the imperfect indicative features strongly in narrative proper, it is the aorist that characteristically carries the mainline, as Fanning states, […] perfective (aorist) verbs indicate sequenced events occurring one after another as the ‘main line’ of the narrative, while imperfective verbs indicate simultaneous occurrences, which fill in background circumstances of the narrative.17

This mainline function shows itself to be the aorist’s usual occupation, though it is capable of other functions also, which will be explored below. This dominant function of the aorist is not a controversial observation; what remains to be established is the reason for which the aorist is so well-suited to this function. It is proposed here that two semantic values account for the aorist’s suitability to narrative mainline. The first of these semantic values, perfective aspect, is not controversial, and will be dealt with first. The second, remoteness, is controversial, and will be dealt with subsequently. 4.1 Narrative mainline and perfectivity Perfective aspect lends itself well to narrative mainline because it is the external viewpoint.18 When an author depicts the mainline of a narrative, s/he is delineating the framework of the narrative, or the skeletal structure. ––––––– 16

17

18

K. L. McKay, ‘Time and Aspect in New Testament Greek’, Novum Testamentum 34/3 (1992), 221. This is also the case in older Greek; Paul Friedrich, On Aspect Theory and Homeric Aspect (International Journal of American Linguistics, Memoir 28; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), S15. Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 19. This is a feature of other aspectual languages also; Fanning notes the observations of Galton on Slavic: ‘the perfective is used to show the succession of events, and the imperfective to stop the flow of time and dwell on an unchanging state or durative process in disregard of the temporal sequence’; Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 25–26. See also Durst-Andersen on Russian; Per Durst-Andersen, ‘Russian Aspect as Different Statement Models’, in BBL, 85; Vonen on Tokelau; Arnfinn Muruvik Vonen, ‘The Expression of Temporal and Aspectual Relations in Tokelau Narratives’, in BBL, 371; Heinämäki on Finnish; Orvokki Heinämäki, ‘Aspect as Boundedness in Finnish’, in BBL, 175–76. Perfective aspect offers ‘a retrospectively distanced, objective perspective on events that are presented as realis’; Suzanne Fleischman, Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 81 [italics are original].

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Everything else in the narrative text will hang on this skeletal structure, which means that it is essentially foundational, and will establish the shape of the entire narrative.19 The mainline of the narrative text is concerned with the major events, actions, and developments that project the narrative in the direction it is going. Without the sequence of mainline events and actions, offline information, such as supplemental information, inside information, speech, and so forth, will not make sense; these require the mainline to provide context, and to enable the reader to understand how the narrative arrived at the location where such offline material is meaningful. Offline material is contingent and dependent upon the mainline events.20 It was argued previously that offline material is, by nature, imperfective (chapter three, § 4.2.1). Offline material provides an inside view into whatever is taking place within the narrative proper, giving explanation, personal thoughts, editorial comment, and so forth. Mainline material, by contrast, is by nature perfective. When recounting mainline action, the author is presenting an external view. The reader is not invited inside the narrative with mainline material; events and actions are viewed in sequence and from a distance. This external viewpoint enables the author to construct the skeleton of the narrative, mapping out the major points in the landscape. It is very difficult to indicate these major points with an internal perspective; having been drawn inside the narrative, the reader is not able to view the sequence of events, but is looking inside one particular event or action at a time. By definition, with the internal viewpoint, the beginning and endpoint of an action are not taken into account, making this viewpoint a less natural option to relay sequential material. The external viewpoint, however, is the ideal candidate for relaying sequential material, as it is precisely the beginning and endpoint of an action that are in view.21 With each action ––––––– 19

20 21

‘It is evidently a universal of narrative discourse that in any extended text an overt distinction is made between the language of the actual story line and the language of supportive material which does not itself narrate the main events. I refer to the former— the parts of the narrative which relate events belonging to the skeletal structure of the discourse—as FOREGROUND and the latter as BACKGROUND.’ Hopper, ‘Foregrounding’, 213. Ibid. 215–16. Fanning describes the phenomenon similarly; ‘The basic pattern is that the aorist is used when situations occur in a sequence (since it views each in summary), while the present aspect is used for a situation which is simultaneous with another (since it focuses on the internal features and leaves out the end-point).’ Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 186.

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portrayed in this summary manner, sequences are easily presented and digested. An example in English will demonstrate the greater suitability of perfective aspect to mainline sequence when compared to imperfective aspect. In the first sentence, each action is portrayed with perfective verbs; the second sentence employs imperfective equivalents of the same verbs. He walked down the street and waved to his neighbour, then he turned the corner and entered the supermarket. He was walking down the street and was waving to his neighbour, then he was turning the corner and was entering the supermarket. The first sentence performs perfectly well in English as the sequence of events are portrayed externally, enabling them to be presented one after the other. The second sentence, however, does not perform well in English as the sequence of events are portrayed internally, making it difficult to run one event on to the next.22 Because the internal viewpoint does not view the beginning or end of each action, it confuses how the actions relate to each other. We are not sure if the man was waving the whole time that he was walking, or if he only waved for part of the time he was walking; we do not know if he entered the supermarket at the same time that he turned the corner, or if he entered the supermarket at some point after turning the corner. As such, the second sentence does not communicate efficiently; imperfective aspect is not a natural choice for depicting mainline action; perfective aspect is. 4.2 Narrative mainline and remoteness Alongside perfective aspect, it is here proposed that the semantic value of remoteness is also encoded within the aorist indicative (see chapter 1, § 2.5, for a definition of remoteness). Remoteness contributes to the function of the aorist indicative in narrative mainline, as does perfective aspect. The core reason for this is that narrative mainline is an inherently remote feature of narrative proper. In depicting the skeletal structure of narrative proper, the sequence of events are necessarily viewed from a distance; there is no other ––––––– 22

As Rijksbaron puts it, ‘a narrative consisting solely of imperfects would show virtually no progress’; Rijksbaron, ‘Imperfect’, 248.

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way to depict them. It is not possible to view a sequence of events, which in real time and space may each have taken considerable time to unfold, unless they are presented in summary form and from sufficient distance such that they may be taken into view. Consider the following example in English. The band played Giant Steps, finished their set, and then went to the bar for drinks. The next day they flew to Perth for their next gig, where their audience was equally responsive. Notice that these events span at least twenty-four hours, and yet are relayed quite rapidly. In order to view these events in such summary fashion, they are not only portrayed with use of perfective aspect, but are viewed from a distance. The reader is not given a backstage pass to this gig; we are not told how the musicians felt after they finished playing, what they had to drink, or what the in-flight movie was. We are kept at a distance. Given what we have already asserted about the importance of perfective aspect in this kind of narrative depiction, we note that remoteness goes hand-in-hand with perfectivity. This partnership of perfectivity and remoteness is the default combination for the depiction of narrative mainline. At this point it may be wondered whether remoteness is simply an outcome of perfectivity; perfective portrayals necessitate remoteness. While this may be true (for the sake of argument), remoteness proves its independent status by being coupled with imperfectivity as well as perfectivity, as demonstrated in the previous chapter. Remoteness is not simply a by-product of perfectivity, but is an independent value that can stand without perfectivity, even if its most natural partnership is with perfectivity. When remoteness is coupled with imperfective aspect, it functions to provide offline, and often background, information that supplements the mainline.23 With a simple modification of the example above this is readily appreciated. ––––––– 23

The two aspects share a strong partnership in enabling narrative to do its work. ‘At the same time the presentive [imperfective aspect] tends to slow down a narrative, since everything must be observed and reported in progress, as it unfolds; also, nothing is seen as a discrete total event, a significant change which affects the course of the narrative. For such a view the constative [perfective aspect] is eminently suitable. On the other hand, by gaining an overview of a complete action as a mere imprint, a dead shell, as it were, the dynamic quality of the report is lost. By a skillful combination of the two, it was possible to establish a frame of reference through the use of the presentive, then utilize the position

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The band played Giant Steps, finished their set, and then went to the bar for drinks. At the bar they toasted their absent bassplayer, whose wife was going into labour. The next day they flew to Perth for their next gig, where their audience was equally responsive. The phrase ‘was going into labour’ is imperfective and remote, and provides supplemental information explaining why the band was at the bar toasting their bassplayer. The imperfectivity of ‘was going into labour’ takes this information off the mainline, but its remoteness retains the level of distance that is characteristic of the mainline. Thus it may be concluded that remoteness is not simply a by-product of perfectivity, but works in cooperation with it. With these considerations taken into account, it is concluded that remoteness is a useful category for explaining the mainline function of the aorist indicative. Mainline narrative forms remote-perfective contexts, thus conceiving the aorist as a remote-perfective tense-form naturally accounts for its attraction to such contexts. Remoteness is here considered a semantic value of the aorist, replacing the value of past tense—the category traditionally attributed to the aorist indicative. As indicated earlier, an attempt to disprove tense will not be made; rather, it will be demonstrated that remoteness provides better grounds for explanation than tense does. In order to do this, however, it will first be necessary to draw attention to some of the weaknesses of the tense theory in order to contrast the strengths that remoteness offers.

of the observer outside that frame to report crucial events as accomplished facts.’ Lloyd, Anatomy, 83–84. A similar conception is expressed by Victor: ‘Die narrativen Einheiten sind dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass (1) der Aorist die Handlung fortschreiten lässt—die Aoriste geben also gewissermaßen den Rahmen der narrativen Einheit bzw. die Abfolge der wichtigen Schritte—(2) das Imperfekt diesen von den Aoristen gegebenen Rahmen ausfüllt und damit das Geschehen in die Nähe des Hörers rückt’; Ulrich Victor, ‘Der Wechsel der Tempora in griechischen erzählenden Texten mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Apostelgeschichte’, in Die Apostelgeschichte und die hellenistiche Geschichtsschreibung: Festschrift für Eckhard Plümacher zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (ed. Cilliers Breytenbach and Jens Schröter; Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 57; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 46 [italics are original]. See also Rijksbaron, ‘Imperfect’, 253.

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4.3 Temporal reference and remoteness It is well known that the aorist indicative often carries a non-past temporal reference; ‘l’aspect peut à ce point évincer le temps que l’aoriste y rende un fait présent’.24 A number of examples from Luke and John demonstrate this phenomenon. Luke 1:47 kai. hvgalli,asen to. pneu/ma, mou evpi. tw/| qew/| tw/| swth/ri, mou( ‘…and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…’ Luke 3:22 kai. katabh/nai to. pneu/ma to. a[gion swmatikw/| ei;dei w`j peristera.n evpV auvto,n( kai. fwnh.n evx ouvranou/ gene,sqai\ su. ei= o` ui`o,j mou o` avgaphto,j( evn soi. euvdo,khsaÅ And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’ Luke 7:35 kai. evdikaiw,qh h` sofi,a avpo. pa,ntwn tw/n te,knwn auvth/jÅ ‘But wisdom is justified by all her children.’ Luke 8:46 o` de. VIhsou/j ei=pen\ h[yato, mou, tij( evgw. ga.r e;gnwn du,namin evxelhluqui/an avpV evmou/Å But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.’ John 7:26 kai. i;de parrhsi,a| lalei/ kai. ouvde.n auvtw/| le,gousinÅ mh,pote avlhqw/j e;gnwsan oi` a;rcontej o[ti ou-to,j evstin o` cristo,jÈ ‘And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?’ John 13:31–32 {Ote ou=n evxh/lqen( le,gei VIhsou/j\ nu/n evdoxa,sqh o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou kai. o` qeo.j evdoxa,sqh evn auvtw/\| 32 Îeiv o` qeo.j evdoxa,sqh evn auvtw/|(Ð kai. o` qeo.j doxa,sei auvto.n evn auvtw/|( kai. euvqu.j doxa,sei auvto,nÅ ––––––– 24

J. Humbert, ‘L’aoriste indicatif: rend-il nécessairement le passé?’, Revue des études anciennes 42 (1940), 187; ‘die eigentliche Erklärung des Tempusgebrauchs noch nicht zu völliger Klarheit durchgerungen hat’; Felix Hartmann, ‘Aorist und Imperfektum im griechischen’, Neue Jahrbuch für das klassische Altertum 43 (1919), 316. Such is the case from Homeric Greek onwards; see W. B. Stanford, The Odyssey of Homer (ed. W. B. Stanford; vol. 1; 2nd ed.; Hampshire: St. Martin’s Press, 1959), lxxxvi. On aorists that do not refer to the past in Plato, Xenophon, and elsewhere, see F. Beetham, ‘The Aorist Indicative’, Greece and Rome 49/2 (2002), 228.

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When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified. 32 [If God is glorified in him,] God will also glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.’ John 15:6 eva.n mh, tij me,nh| evn evmoi,( evblh,qh e;xw w`j to. klh/ma kai. evxhra,nqh kai. suna,gousin auvta. kai. eivj to. pu/r ba,llousin kai. kai,etaiÅ ‘If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.’ Also Luke 11:18, diemeri,sqh; 15:24, avne,zhsen, eu`re,qh; 16:4, e;gnwn; 17:6, u`ph,kousen; 19:42, evkru,bh; 24:18, e;gnwj; John 15:8, evdoxa,sqh; 17:25, e;gnw, e;gnwn, e;gnwsan. In the Lukan and Johannine material alone, we observe a good number of non-past-referring aorist indicatives. The majority of these are present referring, though at least one is future referring (Luke 17:6). There are more aorists in Luke and John for which a non-past-referring translation would be possible, and arguably preferable, though most translations try to include past temporal reference in their rendering even when this strains the context. Such can be seen with these two examples from John. John 17:14 evgw. de,dwka auvtoi/j to.n lo,gon sou kai. o` ko,smoj evmi,shsen auvtou,j( o[ti ouvk eivsi.n evk tou/ ko,smou kaqw.j evgw. ouvk eivmi. evk tou/ ko,smouÅ ‘I have given them your word, and the world has hated (will hate) them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.’ (NRSV, with my alteration in brackets) John 17:18 kaqw.j evme. avpe,steilaj eivj to.n ko,smon( kavgw. avpe,steila auvtou.j eivj to.n ko,smon\ ‘As you sent me into the world, I have sent (will send) them into the world.’ (NIV, with my alteration in brackets) In both cases the aorists are rendered with past temporal reference, even though this makes little sense in the context, since the world has not yet hated Jesus’ disciples, and Jesus has not yet sent his disciples into the world. There would be less exegetical ingenuity required by commentators on these verses if the aorists were seen simply as future-referring.

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4.3.1 Decker and Olsen. Decker has surveyed the temporal reference of all aorist indicatives in Mark, and concludes that there are ‘453 (88.6 percent) with past reference, 8 (1.6 percent) that refer to present time, 4 (0.8 percent) future references, and 46 (9 percent) are temporally unrestricted’.25 While nearly 89 percent of aorists in Mark are indeed past-referring, the 11 percent that are not accounted for by the tense-based view form an impressive exception to the rule. Again, these figures do not disprove the tense-based theory, but they do allow the possibility that an alternative theory may better explain the data.26 Decker defends Porter’s assertion that the aorist is without tense at the level of semantics, though at the pragmatic level it may often implicate past temporal reference.27 Olsen also adheres to a non-tense-based understanding of the aorist. While Olsen is critical of Porter at several points,28 she nevertheless admits that he is correct about the aorist, even though she regards the imperfect, pluperfect, perfect, and future indicative tense-forms to be marked for tense: The Koine Greek present and aorist are therefore best analyzed as unmarked for tense, as Porter argues, since they have variable and cancelable temporal reference dependent on the pragmatic context.29

This does not deny that the aorist indicative is often past-referring. The point is that past temporal-reference is not considered a semantic property of the aorist but a pragmatic implicature, as Rijksbaron indicates, ‘the value [past] is not part of the meaning of the aorist indicative; it is, rather, in Gricean terms, a conversational implicature, be it a very strong one’.30 ––––––– 25 26 27

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29 30

Decker, Temporal Deixis, 95. On the role of the augment in this debate, see chapter three, § 4.1.1. Though Fanning’s position is ultimately closer to the traditional view than Porter’s and Decker’s, he acknowledges that temporal reference is in no small part due to the combination of semantic and pragmatic features; Fanning, Verbal Aspect, 29. Voelz is another who strongly disagrees with Porter’s basic theory, yet agrees that the traditional position is inadequate. He suggests ‘that the traditional analysis of the aorist and present tenses of the Greek verb is inappropriate and that there are alternative understandings to be preferred’; Voelz, ‘Proposal’, 156. Olsen, Aspect, 227. See also McKay, ‘Aspectual Usage’, 193. Rijksbaron, ‘Imperfect’, 246. See also Hewson, who states that the category of aorist must never be considered as a past tense; John Hewson and Vit Bubenik, ‘The Verbal System of Ancient Greek’, in Tense and Aspect in Indo-European Languages: Theory, Typology, Diachrony (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 145; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997), 38.

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While Decker and Olsen base their conclusions on the principle of cancelability, it is here maintained that the best grounds for replacing the traditional tense-based conception with an alternative conception is power of explanation. I have proposed that the semantic values of perfectivity and remoteness explain the usage of the aorist indicative in narrative mainline. It may be argued, however, that the values of perfectivity and past tense are equally able to explain such usage. Obviously the skeletal mainline of any narrative will naturally be depicted as having happened in the past. The argument could go either way, however. One might argue that the reason the aorist is employed is because narrative proper is set in the past, and therefore the past-referring aorist is a natural choice. On the other hand, however, one might argue that the aorist is suited to narrative proper on other grounds (perfectivity and remoteness), and the reason it so often expresses past temporal reference is because it is used in an already past context.31 Unfortunately, this kind of argumentation resembles the problem of the proverbial chicken and the egg. It is with reference to the aorist indicatives that do not occur in narrative proper that the question is more easily resolved. 4.4 Remote-perfectivity and discourse The question must be raised: why use the aorist in direct discourse? The main motivation for choosing the aorist, according to the tense-based view, must be that the speaker has need of a past-tense verb; obviously direct discourse will often be past-referring. However, there is a significant problem here as we recall the non-past referring aorists observed above, all of which occur within direct discourse. This simple fact proves that the aorist is not

31

Incidentally, this is not a purely modern conclusion; Haberland argues that the Stoics understood the aorist as, by itself, not contributing anything to temporal reference; Harmut Haberland, ‘A Note on the “Aorist”’, in Language and Discourse: Test and Protest (ed. J. L. Mey; Linguistic and Literary Studies in Eastern Europe 19; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1986), 176. As Porter argues: ‘Patterns of textual usage readily illustrate that certain textual conditions become associated with particular tense forms (e.g. Aorist in narrative contexts; Present in descriptions), such that use of the tense form in the textual environment readily implicates the conventionalized meaning.’ Porter, Verbal Aspect, 104. Also Decker, ‘The dominance of the aorist form would then be seen, not as evidence of the past-time meaning of the aorist, but rather as the principal means of structuring the narrative and sketching the background events that carry the storyline.’ Decker, Temporal Deixis, 98–99.

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chosen simply to provide a past-referring verb within discourse; it is often chosen even when past temporal reference is not desired, nor implicated. It is at this point that the tense-based theory most seriously fails to explain the usage of the aorist. How then may we understand the use of the aorist within discourse? 4.4.1 Subordination and discourse. Approximately one third of aorist indicatives that occur in direct discourse appear in subordinate clauses, relative clauses, or conditional sentences. The remoteness of the aorist tenseform lends itself to such uses within discourse. Subordinate clauses, relative clauses, and conditional sentences are all by nature dependent upon nonsubordinate clauses. In a manner similar to the use of the imperfect indicative within negative conditional sentences (see chapter three, § 4.3), remoteness gives the aorist a secondary, often dependent, function in discourse, especially in contrast to the present indicative. The reason for this is related to the nature of discourse. There can be no question that the present indicative is the dominant tense-form in direct discourse, as the statistics demonstrate clearly. In Luke, 608 present indicatives occur in direct discourse, compared to 220 aorists; John has 826 present indicatives in direct discourse, compared to 228 aorists; Vita Aesopi G has 500 present indicatives in direct discourse, compared to 221 aorists; Chariton has 94 presents in direct discourse, compared to 52 aorists; the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has 76 presents in direct discourse, compared to 31 aorists; Thucydides has 14 presents in direct discourse, compared to 4 aorists; Lysias has 4 presents in direct discourse, compared to 0 aorists. In much the same way that the aorist dominates narrative proper, the present dominates discourse. This pattern makes sense given the nature of narrative proper and discourse; narrative proper creates an inherently remote-perfective context, while discourse creates a proximate-imperfective context. As such, the remote-perfective aorist is the natural choice for remote-perfective contexts, as is the proximate-imperfective present for proximate-imperfective contexts. As observed already, however, these contexts are not exclusive, and readily permit the employment of other tense-forms; for example, the historical present serves specific functions in narrative proper that are different to the present’s function in discourse. Likewise, the aorist serves specific functions in discourse that are different to its function in narrative proper. In narrative proper, the aorist rules; it is dominant, and shapes the mainline. In discourse, the aorist is subordinate; it is not dominant, and does not control the shape of

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discourse. The primary reason for this is that the aorist is out of its natural habitat; it is a remote-perfective tense-form in a proximate-imperfective environment. Nevertheless, there is a place for the aorist in discourse, just as there is a place for the present in narrative proper. The key point is that each exercises a different role in each different context. The result is that a remote-perfective understanding of the aorist indicative makes sense of the dependent uses of the aorist within discourse; it is not the dominant tense-form in the proximate-imperfective context, and therefore takes a subordinate role. 4.4.2 Perfective contrast. It is recognized, however, that subordination will not explain all uses of the aorist in discourse. Non-dependent uses are explained by the need of a perfective contrast. Just as narrative proper periodically requires an imperfective contrast, so discourse periodically requires a perfective contrast, and the aorist is the only perfective option available for this purpose. Thus we see that a remote-perfective understanding of the aorist indicative is able to explain its usage in discourse. It will often take a subordinate role because it is a remote-perfective form in a proximateimperfective context. Other uses of the aorist are accounted for by the need of a perfective contrast. We note again that the tense-based conception of the aorist is not able to explain many of its uses in discourse; there simply does not seem to be any compelling reason why the past-tense aorist should be used in discourse that is present-referring. Moreover, the tense-based theory cannot explain the subordination of the aorist within discourse. I conclude, therefore, that a remote-perfective understanding of the aorist indicative has greater power of explanation than does a tense-based understanding. 5. Conclusion The aorist indicative is primarily a narrative proper tense-form, being the dominant choice for depicting narrative mainline. The reason that the aorist is the mainline tense-form par excellence is because it is a remote-perfective tense-form, being naturally suited to the remote-perfective context of narrative mainline. It was argued that both perfective aspect and the spatial category of remoteness are semantic values of the aorist tense-form, which often implicate past temporal reference, but not always. The remoteimperfectivity of the aorist does not prevent it from participating in

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proximate-imperfective contexts, such as direct discourse, but causes the aorist to give way to the present indicative; the aorist often finds itself in subordinate roles within discourse, and the proximate-imperfective present indicative retains its dominance in such contexts. This understanding of the aorist provides greater potential for explanation than does the traditional tense-based understanding of the aorist; the tense-based theory is not able to explain non-past-referring aorists in a satisfactory way, and cannot account for the subordinate role of the aorist in discourse situations.

CHAPTER FIVE The Future Tense-form

1. Introduction The tense-forms investigated within the chapters to this point have been seen to encode aspectual qualities at the level of semantics that are accepted by the majority of contributors. As has been pointed out in those chapters, the present and imperfect indicatives encode imperfective aspect, and the aorist indicative encodes perfective aspect. While the evaluation of the semantic feature of tense is a debated issue with these tense-forms, aspect is not. As we begin to investigate the future tense-form, however, we acknowledge that this uniformity of opinion regarding aspect dissolves. Some contributors claim that the future tense-form encodes perfective aspect, others claim that it is capable of both perfective and imperfective aspectual expression, while yet others claim that the future is non-aspectual, or aspectually vague. Alongside the debate concerning this aspectual ambiguity, there is also debate at the level of temporal reference. While most contributors affirm the future temporal reference of the future indicative, and regard such temporal reference as a semantic quality, there are others who are not so convinced. The burden of this chapter, therefore, is to seek clarity in terms of the aspect of the future indicative and to examine the validity of its supposed future temporal reference, while keeping in view the usage of the future within text, and issues related to morphology and historical development. 2. Future usage and function 2.1 Luke Luke employs 312 future indicatives, all of which are found within direct discourse, without exception.

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VERBAL ASPECT, THE INDICATIVE MOOD, AND NARRATIVE

Luke 16:13 Ouvdei.j oivke,thj du,natai dusi. kuri,oij douleu,ein\ h' ga.r to.n e[na mish,sei kai. to.n e[teron avgaph,sei( h' e`no.j avnqe,xetai kai. tou/ e`te,rou katafronh,seiÅ ouv du,nasqe qew/| douleu,ein kai. mamwna/|Å ‘No servant can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money.’ Luke 21:33 o` ouvrano.j kai. h` gh/ pareleu,sontai( oi` de. lo,goi mou ouv mh. pareleu,sontaiÅ ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.’ Of these 312 future indicatives, some occur in Old Testament quotations within direct discourse. Interestingly, the contexts of these quotations demonstrate that even these are originally found within direct discourse. Two examples from Luke are given below, with the corresponding Old Testament contexts following each.1 Luke 3:4–5 w`j ge,graptai evn bi,blw| lo,gwn VHsai