14 Alexander C. Loney accurately describe the nature of the action (its Aktionsart), they fail to account for its larger discourse function and the reason for the authorial discretion exercised in choosing to employ a “complexive” aorist. Within the phrase ν τα ς μ ραις κε ναις, it is particularly the adjec- tive κε ναις that effects this change of perspective through its generally recognized semantic property of “remoteness”36. This property can refer not only to linear/grammatical distance and to psychological distance but also to temporal/perspectival “distance”37. The pragmatic result of the use of this adjective with a noun of time (most often μ ρα) is that a distance is created between the circumstances referred to by the κε νος adverbial phrase of time and the speaking consciousness. In the Luke 4,1-2 example, the actions in the prior sentence (expressed by the im- perfectives γετο and πειραζ μενος) are viewed as distant compared to the action of the following sentence (ο κ φαγεν), via the phrase ν τα ς μ ραις κε ναις. The distinction between the verbal natures of the two sentences is that the former’s imperfects are “far” and the latter’s aorist is “near” with respect to the speaker. The result of this change in distance relative to the speaker is a switch of perspective on how the actions of the narrative are viewed by the audience of the gospel. In other words, this phrase is a deictic indicator, which literally has a temporal function, but more importantly has a discourse or narratological function38. The primary semantic difference contained in the different verbal aspects of the two phrases’ verbs is this change of audience’s perspective. The imperfective verbs in the prior phrase create an internal perspective and the perfective verb of the latter phrase creates an external perspective. The imperfectives, because they possess the semantic characteristic of “remoteness” and relate the actions as “far” from the speaking conscious- ness, create a sense that the reader is not near to the moment of speaking (the narrator’s or the reader’s own present)39, but instead that he is far from it and consequently near to the past-time actions of the imperfec- 36 According to BAGD, “an entity... viewed as relatively remote in the discourse set- ting” (301, s.v. κε νος). The linguistic property concerned here is deixis, and κε νος is specifically a “distal” deictic marker. On deixis in Greek, see J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen über Syntax mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Griechisch, Lateinisch und Deutsch (2; Basel 1928) 101-10. 37 Wallace, Greek Grammar, 325-28, especially the Rom 6,21 example on 328, about which he writes, “evidently κε νος is used because of the temporal distance between the readers and the former lifestyle…”. 38 For a discussion on Markan usage of the similar phrase ν τα ς κε ναις μ ραις and its role in temporal deixis, see Decker, Temporal Deixis, 79. 39 The “moment of speaking” here can be identified with RT (receiving time), although a distinction in this case between RT and CT (coding time) is unimportant. On CT vs. RT, see ibid., 197 n. 149.