[B-Greek] John 4:28. Aorist and present verbs
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri May 11 13:57:24 EDT 2007
shalom Webb,
I am not sure we are communicating clearly. Let me try again.
In referring to the KAINH DIAQHKH I used 'literary device', thinking
of it as communicative device in a written document.
Another term would be 'rhetorical device', including both written and
oral media.
The "historical present" is a rhetorical device.
[[NB: 'rhetorical device', as a term used here, does not prejudice
where and how a device is used on a continous spectrum from
"austentatiously formal" to "basely colloquial", and points in
between, and is not limited to language. Nor does the term prejudice
how often any one author/speaker may use it.]]
It is a special device, because it breaks the contextual implications
of both the aspectual and the temporal reference of the verb forms.
Your statement "it's a totally normal and everyday way of composing
oral narration in many languages" agrees with this. I assume that you
are including English, and would not suggest that English is a
tense-less language, so that using a present tense verb in an English
past narration does not mean that the English present has no time, but
rather, that English can play with the tense reference for "special
effect". (English is actually different from Greek because in English
one can distinguish 'I go' and 'I am going', but we do not need to
develop that here since Greek does not have such a distinction in its
present.)
Incidently, in Greek the historical present can be used in a broad
sweep of registers, from style-conscious Josephus to idiosyncratic
Mark, to schizo-register Luke to simple-clean John. It is 'classical'
as well.
ερρωσο
Randall Buth
On 5/11/07, Webb <webb at selftest.net> wrote:
> I wouldn't explain the historical present a literary device--in the first
> instance, it's a totally normal and everyday way of composing oral narration
> in many languages for the purposes of bringing in vividness and the sense of
> time in process to the telling and experiencing of the story. The more
> common and ordinary a usage is, the less natural it is to explain that usage
> as an exception to the "rule". It's one thing to decide pragmatically how
> you're going to teach a language (e.g. by giving the students a set of
> rules); it's another to create a linguistic analysis that makes equally good
> sense of the "rules" and their supposed "exceptions".
>
> Webb Mealy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Randall Buth
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 1:26 AM
> To: B-Greek
> Subject: [B-Greek] John 4:28. Aorist and present verbs
>
> >Hey Anthony, I'm thinking this may be a historical present.
> >Kelton Graham
> >From: "Anthony" <anthony.rimell at orcon.net.nz>
> >> At the end of her discourse with Jesus, the Samaritan woman AFHKEN
> >> (aorist) her pitcher, APHLQEN (aorist) into the city and LEGEI (present)
> >> to the people.
> >> The aorists are straightforward, from an aspect point of view, but why
> the
> >> present instead of an imperfect? To fit into the narrative in an
> >> Enlgishing way, I've translated it, "The woman let go of her pitcher,
> went
> >> back into the town, and began to say to the people". I see the NIV simply
> >> translates LEGEI as "said". Am I on track here?
> >> Anthony Rimell
>
> These are a literary phenomenon where something that is 'aoristic'
> a.k.a. perfective within the narrative context is presented
> 'open-ended-ly', even though it was not open-ended. Note that this
> continues a phenonmenon is the preceding verse 4:25 LEGEI and 4:26
> LEGEI, all completed events within the story-flow.
>
> This phenomenon is one of the Achilles' heels of the 'aspect-only'
> approach to the Greek verbs. How so? Because this verb usage is a
> purposeful inversion of norms for literary effect. The narrator talks
> about a completed event within a chain of completed events as though
> it were on-going. [[ Incidentally, the same thing would be true if the
> past imperfective was used ELEGE. That would have been
> backgrounding-demoting the statements for a later cresendo effect
> within the overall dialogue. ]] That means that the Greeks were
> playing with their tense-aspect system for literary effect. And that
> means that the millenia-old, native, internal-to-the-users view of
> Greek verbs as having 'time' within their verbs is on target. The view
> that Greek verbs include time in the indicative tenses has always
> called these narrative present tenses a special literary use, an
> inversion of its normal reference for literary effect. Some persons
> in the last few decades have pointed to this literary explanation of a
> present tense for a past tense as a reason for abandoning a view that
> Greek indicatives have tense. But such an explanation becomes a
> boomerang by returning to where the context undermines the aspect-only
> claim, too.
> Bottom-line:
> This is a literary effect. These are completed past events within
> their narrative context that are being presented to the audience as
> 'open-ended' AND as 'present' -- both the tense and the aspect are
> being used for literary effect.
>
> Translation is a different issue from understanding the Greek. You may
> translate as befits the target language. The NIV 'said' is good
> English but loses the literary play. 'began to say' is not the intent
> of the Greek, it could work in English for one of the LEGEI-events but
> is adding a specification. That is why the proverb says that
> translators are traitors. There is no exact translation here that
> captures what the Greek is doing. That is why people read literature
> in the original language.
>
> The NIV has translated according to English norms.
>
> ERRWSQE (be well)
>
> Randall Buth
> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> randallbuth at gmail.com
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> ---
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>
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com
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