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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect

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  • From: John Leake <jesleake AT yahoo.co.uk>
  • To: Jonathan Mohler <jonathan.mohler AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: B-Hebrew Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect
  • Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 09:20:38 +0100

Jonathan, I at least was speaking about _forms_ of the prefix verb that are most clearly found in Classical Arabic and other West Semitic languages. In Arabic the three forms of the prefix verb are:
yaqtulu - the basic form traditionally called the indicative mood
yaqtula - traditionally called the subjunctive mood
yaqtul - traditionally called the jussive mood

Arab grammarians call all three moods collectively المضارع /al-muDāri'/  'the similar'. Individually they are المضارع المرفوع 'the similar ending in -u', المضارع المنصوب 'the accusative similar' (both forms generally end in -a) and المضارع المجزوم 'the apocopated similar'. 

In function, the subjunctive mood works following certain particles that give the verb a meaning of potentiality:

'that' أن /'an/
'in order' لِـ /li-/ كَيْ /kay/
and combinations of the above.
'until' حتى /Hattā/
'will not' لن /lan/

The jussive is used as a first and third-person imperative (more rarely as a polite second person imperative) with the particle لِـ /li-/ (I incorrectly wrote /la/ on a previous post). It is also used with the negative particle لم /lam/ as a negative equivalent of the perfect (suffix tense). And it is used in the same way as the perfect in the apostasis of a conditional sentence.

There's also an energetic jussive used for commands, in Arabic always after the negative particle لا 'not' also used with the imperative. It is a modification of the jussive appending /-n/ or /-nna/. Rather like נא after a cohortative of jussive, I suppose.

The suffix form, incidentally, they call الماضي 'the carried out, the accomplished' (the Latin perfectum is about right).

John Leake

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ان صاحب حياة هانئة لا يدونها انما يحياها
He who has a comfortable life doesn't write about it - he lives it
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On 30 May 2013, at 06:48, Jonathan Mohler <jonathan.mohler AT gmail.com> wrote:


To all who have contributed to this discussion:

I would like to add my own contribution, but before I do so I would like us to define the difference if any between subjunctive and jussive.  This is a source of confusion for me, even after four years of Greek and Hebrew.  I recently worked through Robert Chisholm's workbook on Jonah and Ruth.  Chisholm often uses the _expression_ "this imperfect is jussive in meaning."  I suppose he means the form is imperfect, but the pragmatic use is jussive.  I would prefer if he just called the form a yiqtol or wayyiqtol.  

As to the issue with the subjunctive, I have never heard a clear definition by an English speaking teacher.  Does subjunctive refer to form or function? I was raised in the French part of Belgium. I took Dutch as a second language and German as a third.  As an adult I spent 12 years in Kenya, where I learned Swahili and Luyia.  I speak English, French and Swahili natively, and the others conversationally.  Every one of these languages uses subjunctive to express a jussive.  For this reason I think I am confused as to the difference between the two.

Jonathan E Mohler
Baptist Bible Graduate School
Springfield, Missouri, US


On May 29, 2013, at 11:00 AM, John Leake wrote:

Indeed, Krahmalkov maintains that the tripartite distinction between indicative, subjunctive and jussive was strictly maintained in Phoenician, and that this continued into Neo-Punic. In the last phases of Punic the subjunctive was orthographically represented, but the subjunctive and jussive were always distinguishable from the indicative since Phoenician maintained the final nun of the 2nd and 3rd persons plural in the indicative prefix form)

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