Verb – Leluka active infinitive, Aorist passive infinitive

ObjectivesLearning objectives

• The morphology of the Leluka active and Aorist passive infinitives
• The syntax and semantics of the Leluka infinitive

VocabularyVocabulary

Table 276 (continued)

MorphologyMorphology: Verb – Leluka active infinitive, Aorist passive infinitive

• The Leluka inf begins with the typical perfect reduplication
• This combines with the κ(ε) of the perfect and the suffix ‘-ναι’ indicating the inf
• All Aorist psv infs are formed like this, e.g. πορευ θῆναι (Elusa) ≈ ἐγερ θῆναι (Efagon) ≈ δο θῆναι (μι verb)

SyntaxSyntax: Verb – Leluka infinitive

Leluka infinitives are always found in subordinate contexts in the New Testament. This is most often after verbs of thinking or communicating:

The verb λέγω takes the Leluka infinitive γεγονέναι as its complement in this context.

SemanticsSemantics: Verb – Leluka infinitive (Past-in-the-past)

Infinitives are, by their nature, tenseless forms. However, we can still talk about past events with infinitives in certain contexts, namely with the Leluka infinitive. In fact, this is the only viable interpretation of 2 Tim 2:18. The people who have swerved from the truth are saying that the resurrection has already happened. In other words, it occurred before their time of speaking, which is in the present.

In addition to this use, the Leluka infinitive can also be used for past situations relative to another past event. One such example is

There are multiple past events here. First, the crowd’s hearing took place in the past relative to the time of speaking. This is the first past event. There is also, however, the event of Jesus doing the sign, and this had to have taken place prior to the crowd hearing about the sign. You cannot hear about something happening before it happens. The infinitive verb πεποιηκέναι, then, is the second past event, and it is past in relation to the past event referred to by ἤκουσαν ‘they heard.’ This makes it a past-in-the-past event.

In both of these uses, the Leluka infinitive is occurring prior to another event. It is not that the Leluka infinitive is, strictly speaking, contributing a past tense interpretation – it is only relating one event to another. Although the Leluka infinitive is often used to refer to events that happened prior to another event, this is not always the case, particularly with stative verbs. We have already seen that stative verbs can have a present stative interpretation in Leluka, and this is also true of the infinitive:

The verb εἰδέναι is the Leluka infinitive of οἶδα, a verb found with a stative present interpretation. Because the verb is a state, it is not interpreted in the past relative to another event. Thomas is asking how they are able to know the way now, not how they could have known the way before. The Leluka infinitive’s syntactic requirement of being in a subordinate context still holds when it is interpreted in the present, but its interpretation will depend on the kind of eventuality referred to by the verb.