[B-Greek] Force of periphrastic construction?

Pete Harwood pete at pengefamilychurch.org
Fri Mar 30 08:31:59 EST 2007


Dear all,

Can anyone help me with this? I've just started Mounces Graded reader,
(Having just completed Dobson's NT greek, and A SummerGreek reader by
self study), and I'm not sure of the answer to these questions:

------------------
1 John 1:4 -

What is the force of a periphrastic construction?
Does context support giving this periphrastic construction it's historical
force?

I found the following quotes:

First, regarding semantics, in classical Greek this construction was used to
highlight aspectual force. By the Hellenistic era, and particularly in the
NT, such emphasis is often, if not usually,lost. (Wallace)

Originally it stressed the linear aspect of the verb. (Mounce)

Does this mean that originally (i.e. in classical greek) a periphrastic
construction transformed the aspect of
a perfect participle to progressive rather than perfective-stative. I.e.
that the action is still going
on (our joy is being made complete), rather than the action has occurred
bringing about the resultant
state (our joy is complete – because we have written this).

What about context?

Does the fact that GRAFOMEN is present tense, support the notion that in
this case the pc
should have a progressive aspect. (we are writing these things so that our
joy will be made complete)

-----------------

Any help would be gratefully received!

Pete Harwood.







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