# What is the tense of "Christ is risen"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185 "2012-04-08T17:02:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/41 "2012-04-09T15:04:32Z")
I have never been LOL-ed at before in GQ before, let alone twice. Perhaps the poster just thought of a mother-in-law joke, or something, at those points he was typing. The grammar of texting shorthand is unclear. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/42 "2012-04-09T15:08:29Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I have never been LOL-ed at before in GQ before, let alone twice. > > Perhaps the poster just thought of a mother-in-law joke, or something, at those points he was typing. > > The grammar of texting shorthand is unclear. I believe you have been LOL-ed at in this thread zero times. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/43 "2012-04-09T16:21:21Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I have never been LOL-ed at before in GQ before, let alone twice. Um, excuuuuse me, that should be “Posters have never LOL-ed at me before.” Active, man, active! > [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > _In Act 3 of the play, Caesar is killed._ > > _In Act 3 of the play, Caesar is killed by Brutus._ > [@nudgenudge](#): > > Billy: So I’m walking across the field, and I see Farmer John’s bull. I decide to steal it. > Billy: I am shot by John. These are being rejected by my brain as ungrammatical, but the reason can’t be figured out by me. It feels like it should be called some sort of [irrealis mood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrealis_mood), but it can’t have my finger put on it. If the whole thought is “Perhaps then I am shot by John.” or “Suppose I decide to steal it,” then we’re no longer indicative and it makes sense. Usually story-telling uses the imperfect or perfect, not the present. “Caesar was killed in act 3” sounds much better. So does “I decided to steal it.” But I can’t find any way around “The leaves are raked by my son,” which is certainly passive, indicative and grammatical. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/44 "2012-04-09T16:26:05Z")
In _Julius Caesar_, Claudius eats an apple, not a banana. Anthony addresses a crowd, not an intimate gathering. And Caesar is killed by Brutus, not Cleopatra. Does the above hit any grammatical funny bones for you? ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/45 "2012-04-09T19:45:02Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > In _Julius Caesar_, Claudius eats an apple, not a banana. Anthony addresses a crowd, not an intimate gathering. And Caesar is killed by Brutus, not Cleopatra. > > Does the above hit any grammatical funny bones for you? Yes. “Is killed” still bugs me. How can something with completed aspect be happening in the present? “Gets killed” makes sense. “Was killed” makes sense. “Will be killed” makes sense. “has been killed” makes sense. “Is being killed” makes sense. “Is killed” hurts my brain. Nitpick: Anthony didn’t do shit. That was Antony. Upon investigation, I found [this unhelpful thing](http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/to_be.htm): > [@](#): > > Sometimes it is difficult to say whether a “To be” verb is linking a subject to a participle or if the verb and participle are part of a passive construction. In “Certain behaviors are allowed,” is "are” linking “behaviors” to “allowed” (a participle acting as a predicate adjective) or is “are allowed” a passive verb? In the final analysis, **it probably doesn’t matter** , but the distinction leads to some interesting variations. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/46 "2012-04-09T20:00:42Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Yes. “Is killed” still bugs me. How can something with completed aspect be happening in the present? “Gets killed” makes sense. “Was killed” makes sense. “Will be killed” makes sense. “has been killed” makes sense. “Is being killed” makes sense. “Is killed” hurts my brain. Could be a genuine dialectical (or ideolectical?) difference between you and I. To my knowledge, the linguists would count “Caesar is killed by Brutus” (and "I am shot by John–see my “script” example a few posts above, I note you missed it when quoting examples from the thread) as unproblematically grammatical in standard american English. Note that uncontroversially though “is” is in the present tense, it is not exclusively used to denote things happening in the present. For example: Tomorrow, I am going to school, my wife is going to work, and my kids are going to Grandma’s house. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/47 "2012-04-09T20:16:13Z")
And: “Today I’m on the red team and Johnny is on the green team. Tomorrow, Johnny is on the green team, and I’m on the red team. And we continue to alternate thereafter.” All in the present tense, but all talking about the future. We also do this in informal settings when talking about the past: “Yesterday, Claude walks up to me and says…” etc. Also note that your objection in the last post from the fact that the events are “in the completed aspect” should apply to each clause in my example, not just the one containing the passive construction. Does it not? ---
**Author:** ![Dixieland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Dixieland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dixieland)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/48 "2012-04-09T22:16:08Z")
Simple present tense, passive voice. It may be USED for narrative (whatever time). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/49 "2012-04-10T00:04:43Z")
The idea that English only has two tenses is ridiculous. If that were true, then ideas in languages that have more tenses than that could not be expressed in English. Grammars that insist this is true are using their own definition of tense that is not shared by 99% of the English speaking world. I really wish specialists would realize that you don’t get to make up your own definition for words and then tell everyone else that they are wrong because they choose to use the more common definition. It’s like those (not that bright) scientists who tell you you aren’t doing work when you are carrying a box. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/50 "2012-04-10T00:32:23Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The idea that English only has two tenses is ridiculous. It’s actually true. The number of tenses a language has has nothing to do with what ideas about time it’s able to express. For example, note that you’re perfectly well able to talk about future events in English–but to do so, you use the present tense. > [@](#): > > If that were true, then ideas in languages that have more tenses than that could not be expressed in English. Grammars that insist this is true are using their own definition of tense that is not shared by 99% of the English speaking world. Certainly they’re using it as a technical term–because it _is_ a technical term. Physicists also don’t mean by “particle” what 99% of the english speaking world means by “particle.” Do you think physicists should stop using the term the way they do? > [@](#): > > I really wish specialists would realize that you don’t get to make up your own definition for words and then tell everyone else that they are wrong because they choose to use the more common definition. This makes sense–but very often the specialist finds that the layman isn’t using the term with a _different_ definition but instead with _no clear definition at all_. For example, what do you think the definition is of the layman’s sense of “tense” you’re referring to here? It’s like those (not that bright) scientists who tell you you aren’t doing work when you are carrying a box. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/51 "2012-04-10T00:37:59Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s like those (not that bright) scientists who tell you you aren’t doing work when you are carrying a box. is very likely a perfect example of > [@Frylock](#): > > This makes sense–but very often the specialist finds that the layman isn’t using the term with a _different_ definition but instead with _no clear definition at all_. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/52 "2012-04-10T02:42:09Z")
I just found this in a [site devoted to the Greek grammar of the NT](http://www.bcbsr.com/greek/grklnk.html) and its presentation (or workarounds) in English. Note the translated example from Mark here, which seems to match the one under discussion. [begin excerpt from the site’s [page on tenses](http://www.bcbsr.com/greek/gtense.html)] A. The Perfect Tense The force of the perfect indicative is simply that it describes an event that, completed in the past, has results existing in the present time (i.e., in relation to the time of the speaker). 1. Intensive (Resultative) Perfect The perfect may be used to emphasize the \*results or present state \*produced by a past action. The English present often is the best translation for such a perfect. Mark 6:14 John the baptizer is risen from the dead. _Italics mine._ [end excerpt] Comments? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/53 "2012-04-10T04:41:57Z")
> [@sundog66](#): > > I think the two most plausible analyses are: > > 1. Present-tense form of copula _be_, with _risen_ parsed as an adjective. > > 2. Present perfect, but differing from normal present perfect in that the auxiliary _be_ is used instead of _have_. > > If (2) is correct, then we have to explain why this pattern is not productive, e.g., why do we not find: > > a. John is eaten breakfast. > b. John is taken a shower. > > Maybe it’s an archaism. > > However, I do not think that a passive analysis is tenable (and besides, passive is a voice, not a tense, so it doesn’t really answer the question anyway), because at least in English, intransitive predicates do not passivize. That is, if “Christ is risen” were passive, then we would expect an active counterpart along the lines of “Somebody rose Christ”, contrary to fact: _rise_ is intransitive, cf. transitive variant _raise_. Of course, it’s also true that some passive forms lack active counterparts, e.g., “John is reported to have left” but not “I reported John to have left”. But I don’t think we want to go down that road in this case. Actually, the intransitivity of “rise” is exactly why you get (or rather, archaically, got) “Christ is risen” and not “John is eaten breakfast”: because eat is transitive and rise is intransitive. This is similar to a structure in French whereby various strictly intransitive verbs such as _mourir, naître, monter, descendre_ (die, be born, climb, descend) and so forth, construct the perfect with the auxiliary _être_ (be) rather than _avoir_ (have): _il est mort_ can mean both “he is dead” and “he died” (_il est mort le 22 août dernier_). But that’s archaic in English; auxiliary “be” is an archaism and no longer productive in such situations. In my opinion your modern English speaker construes “He is risen” as copula + adjective. We might well hear a nuance between _He has risen_ and _he is risen_, much as we hear a nuance between _He has gone_ and _he is gone_. Also, **Frylock** is right about tenses. English has only two tenses, i.e. two finite verb forms for all non-modal verbs: past and present (also called non-past). We indicate events in the future using the auxiliary “will” in the present; note that this auxiliary can also be placed in the past tense as “would” (_Although he doesn’t know it now, he will go in two days; although he didn’t know it then, he would go in two days_.) This is the same as German, which uses the modal _werden_, but is different from, for example, French, which possesses both an actual future tense (_j’aimerai_) and a periphrastic future construction using the verb _aller_ (_je vais aimer_). ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/54 "2012-04-10T06:38:11Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The idea that English only has two tenses is ridiculous. If that were true, then ideas in languages that have more tenses than that could not be expressed in English. Grammars that insist this is true are using their own definition of tense that is not shared by 99% of the English speaking world. I really wish specialists would realize that you don’t get to make up your own definition for words and then tell everyone else that they are wrong because they choose to use the more common definition. In a discussion about grammar, why not use the grammatical definitions? Your complaint is like objecting to people in a conversation on baseball using the noun “home” to mean the plate at the batter’s box, when the vast majority of the time it’s used to refer to a place of residence. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/55 "2012-04-12T01:26:53Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > “Any” grammar? You mean maybe like Visser’s _An Historical Syntax of the English Language_? Or were you perhaps thinking only of instructive material, such as _English Grammar Instruction That Works!_ by Rothstein et al., or Leech’s _Meaning and the English Verb_, which for about thirty years now has been pretty much the standard textbook on English verb use for foreign learners? Or are you thinking instead of scholarly works focussing specifically on the development English verb tenses, such as _Past Tense in English: From OE to PDE_ (Sangmeister, 2009)? And let’s not forget the scores of academic and popular works by [David Crystal](https://boards.straightdope.com/wiki/David_Crystal); I’m sure he would be grateful to receive your corrections on his very glaring misuse of these very basic grammatical terms. Sorry, obviously I was unclear. Any _legitimate_ grammar by anyone who has any _legitimate_ right to write an English grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/56 "2012-04-12T02:13:53Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > Sorry, obviously I was unclear. > > Any _legitimate_ grammar by anyone who has any _legitimate_ right to write an English grammar. Of course, this invites the question, who are the legitimate writers of grammars, and how can we determine that they are legitimate? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/57 "2012-04-12T02:26:55Z")
Why, by examining their business card, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/58 "2012-04-12T04:50:31Z")
> [@picker](#): > > I think it is the Present Perfect tense. You mean past perfect (“was risen” would be past pluperfect). Aside from that, I concur. The West Germanic languages mostly use “to be” as the modal verb with verb past participles, when the verbs denote physical movement–going, coming, running, rising, etc. In German you’d say, more or less, _Er ist die Strasse weiter entlang gegangen_ (“he has gone further down the street”, but literally “he _is_ gone…”). English is generally an exception in this regard, but in the time of King James, from which we get most of our stock religious phrases and Bible quotes, “to be” was still used as the modal verb with the same sort of main verbs. It’s possible this usage persists significantly more in AmE than BrE. I can’t assert unequivocally that my reading and listening cover a truly representative sample, but FWIW it seems to me a speaker of BrE would more likely say “they’ve gone” whereas an American would say “They’re gone”. AmE is more conservative, generally, and this would seem to be an example of that. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/59 "2012-04-12T05:01:56Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > The West Germanic languages It could well be all Germanic languages, but I’m not familiar enough with the Scandinavian languages to make the call. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185/60 "2012-04-12T06:23:57Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > Sorry, obviously I was unclear. > > Any _legitimate_ grammar by anyone who has any _legitimate_ right to write an English grammar. No, that’s less clear. What constitutes a “legitimate right” to write an English grammar? Do you need some sort of permission or recognition from the local or national government? Or maybe just certain professional and academic qualifications in linguistics? If so I’d like to know how high you set your standards, because obviously being [a mere linguistics professor, fellow of the British Academy, fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, patron of the Association for Language Learning, president of the UK National Literacy Association, _and_ recipient of an OBE for services to the English language](http://www.davidcrystal.com/) isn’t good enough. Perhaps the hundred-odd books on the English language and linguistics, including several encyclopedias, that this charlatan has authored ought to be recalled and reissued with a prominent “ILLEGITIMATE” stamp on the front cover. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-tense-of-christ-is-risen/618185.md?page=4)