From: Carlton L. Winbery (email@example.com)
Date: Tue Nov 21 1995 - 15:57:36 EST
I am reposting this belatedly because it did get on the list post. I am
learning to use Eudora instead of AOL mail.
Bruce Terry wrote:
>On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, Carlton L. Winbery wrote:
>>present periphrastic involves the present of EIMI + the present ptc.
>>imperfect peri. " imperfect of EIMI + the present ptc.
>>future peri. " future of EIMI + the present ptc.
>>aorist peri. " imperfect of EIMI + aorist ptc.
>>perfect peri. " present of EIMI + perfect ptc.
>>pluperfect peri. " imperfect of EIMI + perfect ptc.
>This good concise list omits the future perfect periphastic:
>future perfect peri. involves the future of EIMI + the perfect ptc.
>The most notable example of this is in Matt. 16:19 where we find ESTAI
>DEDEMENON and ESTAI LELUMENON. The NASV translates these as future perfects
>in English "shall have been bound" and "shall have been loosed." Somewhere
>(for the life of me I cannot remember where) F.F. Bruce has written that such
>a translation misses the meaning of the Greek. Unfortunately, he does not go
>on to explain what that meaning is.
You are certainly correct about the future perf. periphrastic. It is in
the Morphology that Prof. Brooks and I wrote. I just failed to pick it up.
>This being the case, I would like to float another idea on B-Greek and see if
>it gets sunk.
>The basic significance of the perfect aspect (linguists should read "stative
>aspect") seems to be action which happens at a single point in time but which
>has continued results. This being the case the future perfect in Greek would
>signify action in the future that produces a continued state. By way of
>contrast, in English the future perfect is used for action which is past
>relative to a future point in time. If I have correctly described the
>significance of the Greek future perfect, a suitable English translation of
>the words above in Matt. 16:19 would be "shall stay bound" and "shall stay
I am a bit troubled by the phrase "at a single point." I would emphasize a
completed action with a continuing result. Most of the time with the
perfect, either one or the other (complete action or continuing result) is
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