Dear L4Lers-

Ever look at a verb used in an unexpected tense only to be told by a grammar that it doesn't really mean much? Ever wanted to check their research to see if it's true?

The use of ελεγεν in my text for this week reminded me of how this happens. This is one I've run across before, and, perhaps, so have you. The form is imperfect, leading you to believe that you should think in terms of Jesus either beginning to say something or saying something regularly. Go to Robertson, however (my personal favorite among the old standards), and he classifies it as a "Doubtful Imperfect" and says that it's basically an aorist. How would you check the uses of λεγω to see if his conclusion is warranted?

Go to Mark 4:26 in a morphologically tagged text (one that has tags for form analysis). Here's one of his cited instances of the "Doubtful Aorist." Right-click on ελεγεν, choose "Selected Text," the Lemma form (λεγω) and then "Search..." This calls up a search dialog already populated with our verb's dictionary form. Hit the Search button (or just Enter).

This gives you a list of all the times λεγω appears. It's a lot. Now look at the top of the report under "Other Tools." One of the tools is "Search Analysis By Lemma." Click on that.

Now Logos reports back all the places where our verb occurs, but it breaks down the results by form. Look at how often our form occurs in the gospels in discourse! Contrast it with the rarity of this form in the epistles. At the same time, you can note the overwhelming use of λεγω in the present (especially in keeping with the discourse formulae) and the fact that it never occurs in the aorist--not even in the imperative!

You can understand Robertson's point, then. On the other hand, I'm still a believer that the imperfect means at least a little something, even without the aorist present here, and I should add that Wallace agrees (p. 542). And now you can work on your own theories based on the tense usage. I think an imperfect λεγω means much the same as when we say in English, "And he was saying," or, even more colloquially, "And he was like...." I think the imperfect adds vividness and the notion that precision in wording is not so much intended as the meaning of what the person was saying.

But that's just me.

Aaron