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b-hebrew - Re[2]: Alviero: tense and time

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  • From: mjoseph <mjoseph AT terminal.cz>
  • To: "b-Hebrew Digest" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: Alviero: tense and time
  • Date: Fri, 26 Feb 99 21:51:20 -0000


Peter Kirk queried:

>Is just one non-past wayyiqtol in the whole corpus really sufficient
>(quite apart from textual doubts) to invalidate the suggestion that
>wayyiqtol is semantically past? Do real human languages really follow
>any rules quite that strictly?

I think Peter has put his virtual finger on the heart of the problem,
something that has been bothering me ever since this "what is the
all-encompassing function of the wayyiqtol, into which every one of its
usages can plausibly be placed" question first came up.

I trust that nearly everyone on this list speaks at least one language in
addition to his or her native tongue. Given that, I'm sure you have
noticed that (1) living languages, that is, all spoken languages outside
of Esperanto, are *not* 100% regular in their usage of certain
grammatical constructions; (2) nor could they be expected to be regular,
given the obvious fact that spoken languages change through time, and (3)
the greatest degree of irregularity occurs in relation to the most common
features of the language (be, was, been; but interpolate, interpolated,
interpolated).

Given that wayyiqtol is nothing if not common in Biblical Hebrew, is
there any reason to think that "one all-encompassing function" is
anything other than a chimera?

Mark Joseph




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