[Lingtyp] exceptions in textual data to "la concordance des temps"-like principles (esp. for Koine Greek)

[Joseph Brooks]

Hello,

This is not really a topic I'm familiar with cross-linguistically, but I am
wondering if anyone knows of any interesting exceptions (in any language)
to any language-specific "concordance des temps" principle (as an important
discourse-syntactic principle in clause combining in that language).

I'm familiar with this as a prescriptive rule in French, where (if Im
remembering right) there are TAM restrictions of verbs in dependent
clauses, based on the verb in the main clause. From fieldwork on Chini,
similar principles are a fairly big deal in the language (and then in
clause chains it becomes particularly important).

I'm wondering about this because of the example in the Koine Greek (and
then, in translations into whatever language) New Testament in John 8:58
where Jesus says: "Before Abraham was (to be) born (aorist infinitive,
middle voice), I am (present indicative)." It's a strange sentence since
though I dont know Koine Greek, I imagine your average person would expect
Jesus to have just said something more like "I existed before Abraham was
born."

Cheers
Joseph
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