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A Discourse Analysis of the Periphrastic Imperfect In A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE PERIPHRASTIC IMPERFECT IN THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS OF LUKE by CARL E. JOHNSON Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2010 Copyright © by Carl Johnson 2010 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to express my sincere appreciation to each member of my committee whose helpful criticism has made this project possible. I am indebted to Don Burquest for his incredible attention to detail and his invaluable encouragement at certain critical junctures along the way; to my chair Jerold A. Edmondson who challenged me to maintain a linguistic focus and helped me frame this work within the broader linguistic perspective; and to Dr. Chiasson who has helped me write a work that I hope will be accessible to both the linguist and the New Testament Greek scholar. I am also indebted to Robert Longacre who, as an initial member of my committee, provided helpful insight and needed encouragement during the early stages of this work, to Alicia Massingill for graciously proofing numerous editions of this work in a concise and timely manner, and to other members of the Arlington Baptist College family who have provided assistance and encouragement along the way. Finally, I am grateful to my wife, Diana, whose constant love and understanding have made an otherwise impossible task possible. All errors are of course my own, but there would have been far more without the help of many. March 29, 2010 iii ABSTRACT A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE PERIPHRASTIC IMPERFECT IN THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS OF LUKE Carl E. Johnson, PhD. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2010 Supervising Professor: Jerold A. Edmondson Motivated by Bloomfield’s belief that linguistic variation is not without motivation, this paper seeks to determine the distinction between the morphological imperfect and periphrastic imperfect of Koine Greek within the New Testament writings of Luke. This study suggests that: 1. The periphrastic imperfect occurs only within narrative sections of the New Testament and is most prominent in the writings of Luke. 2. The number of periphrastic imperfects has been recently over reported. 3. The periphrastic imperfect is a more marked form of Koine Greek which developed in accordance with general rules of grammaticalization. 4. The discourse function of periphrastic imperfects has not been previously cataloged because traditional codification has been limited to the confines of the sentence, their existence was merely attributed to Aramaic influence, and their uniqueness was largely ignored. iv 5. Just as Longacre has shown the historical present to provide highlighted storyline, the periphrastic imperfect provides highlighted background and can be ranked accordingly. 6. The Periphrastic imperfect highlights background for introductory or linking purposes by presenting particularly salient information concerning location and/or action. This suggests the following four categories: a. INTRODUCTORY LOCATIVE which highlights action whose placement in a specific location or time is important to the subsequent narrative. Both location and action are important. b. LINKING LOCATIVE which highlights action in a specific physical location or time which links the passage to a previous or subsequent narrative which involves the same participants in the same or similar action. Both location and action are important. c. INTRODUCTORY ACTION which highlights the involvement of the subject(s) in an action which is important to the subsequent narrative. d. LINKING ACTION which highlights involvement of the subject(s) in an action which links the passage to a previous or subsequent narrative involving the same participant(s) in the same or similar action. 7. Therefore, a Lukan periphrastic imperfect unites an imperfect form of eivmi, (be) with a nominative present participle which agrees in number with the subject of the copula in order to express a highlighted, ongoing state or action which may occur in a spatial or temporal sphere. Said action is usually agentive. After an initial examination of a reduced number of tokens, I developed a definition for the periphrastic imperfect which addresses both form and function. I used that definition to reexamine each of the tokens proposed by Boyer (Boyer, 1986) as well as those from my own reduced list. In Chapter 3, genuine periphrastic imperfects are grouped by function and discussed in detail. Chapter 4 summarizes my findings and provides additional support for the same. In Appendix E, I v list all periphrastic imperfects found in the writings of Luke. In Appendix F, I list all of the overt tokens excluded from Boyer’s list. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………… iii ABSTRACT……………………………………………...…………………………………………. iv LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………………….. ix LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………….. x Chapter Page 1. INTRODUCTION………………………….….………………………………………. 1 1.1 Tense, Aspect, and Modality ….……………………………………….…. 1 1.2 The Koine Greek Verb System …………………………………………... 3 1.3 The Simple Morphological Imperfect …..……………………….....…... 14 1.4 The Periphrastic Imperfect …………………………………………….… 17 1.5 The Imperfect in Discourse …………………………………………….… 19 1.6 Periphrasis and Grammaticization …………………………………..…. 22 1.7 New Testament Narrative Word Order………………………………….. 25 1.8 The Lukan Narrative …………….….………………………………….…. 26 2. METHODOLOGY: PARAMETERS AND PROCEDURES ……………… ……. 30 2.1 Parameters …………………………….………………..…………………. 30 2.2 Procedures ………………………………………………………….…....... 35 3. DATA ANALYSIS .……………….….………………………………………….……. 46 3.1 Five Theses ………….…...……...…....…….…….…….……………....... 49 3.2 Seven Procedures …………….……...………….………………………....52 3.3 The Introductory Locative Periphrastic ……………...…….…………….. 54 3.4 The Linking Locative Periphrastic .……………….…………………....... 76 vii 3.5 The Introductory Action Periphrastic …………………… …………..... 104 3.6 The Linking Action Periphrastic ...…….……………………………….….. 120 3.7 Summary in Brief .…..………………….…………………………….…...... 133 4. SUMMARY AND SUGGESTIONS .……….…….………………………...…...........135 4.1 General Summary..………………………..…………………………….…...135 4.2 Excluded Tokens …….….…………………..…………………...……….... 139 4.3 Supporting Evidence …..……….….………..….……….………..….…..... 141 4.4 Constituent Order …….….…………………..………………………...…… 148 4.5 Areas of Contribution ………….….……….……..………..……….….....…156 4.6 Need for Further Study…..…….….……….……..………..……………..... 157 APPENDICES A. MY INITIAL REDUCED LIST OF POTENTIAL PERIPHRASTIC IMPERFECTS ..159 B. BOYER’S PERIPHRASTIC IMPERFECTS IN NEW TESTAMENT ORDER ….....179 C. PERIPHRASTIC PARTICIPLE ROOTS USED AS IMPERFECTS…..…………… 190 D. PERIPHRASTIC IMPERFECTS SHOWING REDUCTION BY CATEGORY…..…199 E. CONFIRMED LUKAN PERIPHASTIC IMPERFECTS ……………...…...………… 210 F. REJECTED LUKAN PERIPHASTIC IMPERFECTS …...…………...….........….… 216 WORKS CITED……………………………………………….………..…………………..……...... 218 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION .……………………..………………………………............... 221 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Cline of Dynamicity for Greek verbs Found in Mark 5 ………………………………. 20 3.1 Cline of Dynamicity for Greek verbs in Luke’s Narratives ………………………...…53 ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1.1 Imperfective Categories……………………….………….………………………..….. 24 2.1 Cited Periphrastics………………………………….…….…………………………..... 37 3.1 Examined Verses Containing Periphrastics ..…………..………………………….. 134 4.1 Excluded Periphrastics …………………………….………….…………………...…140 4.2 Locative Fronting and Copula Adjacency………….……………….…………....…..149 4.3 Fronting and Interdiction regarding Periphrastic Imperfects ….……….……….… 153 x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Motivated by Bloomfield’s belief that linguistic variation is not without motivation (Bloomfield, 1933: 164, Reprint 1984), I propose to: 1. determine the distinction between the simple imperfect and periphrastic imperfect of Koine Greek within the New Testament writings of Luke 2. consider whether this periphrasis is the result of predictable grammaticization1 patterns as noted by Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994) 3. show that the selection of the periphrastic form is governed by its function in narrative discourse. Since I will be examining a specific verbal form, a few introductory remarks regarding tense, aspect, and modality are in order. 1.1 Tense, Aspect, and Modality An examination of verbal systems generally addresses tense, aspect, and modality. Hopper states in his preface to Tense-Aspect (Hopper, 1982: 3), In any utterance a peculiar importance is universally attached to the temporal contour of a state of action and the speaker’s attitude towards it. The grammatical correlates of these contours and attitudes are the categories of Tense, Aspect, and Modality; they are pervasive, they are universal (in that no language lacks all three), and every speech event must incorporate one or more of them. In the simplest sense, tense relates to the time in which a given action or state occurs (1992: 1019), verbal aspect is a description of the temporal distribution or contour of the action (Fanning, 1990: 1), and modality addresses subjective evaluation of the speaker regarding the reality of the stated actions (Wallace, 1982: 207). However, a linguistic examination reveals that any examination of verbal systems is far from simple. 1 Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca use grammaticization. Comrie, Eckardt, Hopper, and Traugott prefer grammaticalization. I will treat the terms as interchangeable. 1
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