Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Hi,
Are there any 'aspectniks' at home?  Wanna come out and play?

Here's an English illustration-text borrowed from Waltke and O'Connor, 
Bernard Comrie, et. al.:

John was reading when I entered.

The [entering] is viewed in its entirety, beginning, duration, and 
ending rolled into one view. That's the 'closed' view or perfective.  In 
contrast, only part of the reading is viewed, some "middle" portion of 
it.  It's "open" because we have no view of one or either of its 
beginning or ending point.  The [reading] is therefore viewed 
imperfectively.

As is the case paradigmatically, in the John-sentence above the 
imperfective('was reading') provides background, a situation which is 
simultaneous with the perfective('entered') .   In terms of the 
Universal Paradigm of discourse, it is the perfective that moves the 
narrative forward or moves narrative time forward.  The perfective form 
typically carries the mainline or backbone of a narrative.  

So, to get comfortable, let's make some generalizations about BH.  Let's 
ignore some exceptions for a moment and call the wayyiqtol perfective.  
As we expect from the Universal Paradigm, this perfective form does 
indeed carry the mainline of (past time) narrative.  We also know that 
the BH predicative participle has the discourse function of giving 
backgrounded activities, and I would say that the predicative participle 
is the BH verb form representing imperfective aspect par excellance.  
Might I translate the John-sentence into BH like this using participle 
for background and wayyiqtol for 'mainline'?

yonatan qore) va)abo)

see Gen 19:1 velot yo$eb...vayyar) lot

Well, all that is said for a frame of reference.  My primary inquiry in 
this letter concerns the qatal.  Waltke and O'Connor call the qatal the 
'perfective' form.  (I realize that many of you may know the qatal as 
the 'perfect' rather than the 'perfective' but there is a pretty 
significant difference between the two names which we can probably 
clarify if anyone wants.)  I think it's pretty clear that qatal often 
has perfective meaning.  However, it also usually has *discourse 
functions* which are more in line with the paradigmatic functions of 
imperfective forms.  For instance, does it not often give backround?  
Take for instance 1 Sam 14:19

wayhi [ad diBBer $a)ul...

or Gen 32:31 

vayyizrax lo ha$$eme$ ka)a$er (abar )et P-nu)el vehu) colea( (al y-reKo

or how about a simulatnaous situation as in Gen 13:12

)abram ya$ab...velot ya$ab

Aren't these imperfective qatals?

Isn't Gen 22:1,  ha)elohim nissah )et )abraham  'open'?   It seems that 
the qatal does not view the situation as an event, it does not move the 
narrative time forward, it lacks a view of the situation's endpoint.  
Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to translate Gen 22:1 with the English 
progressive(imperfective): "Then after these things (the) God was 
testing Abraham when He said..."

Could it be that Waltke and O'Connor jumped too fast when they called 
'perfective' the form traditionally known as the 'perfect'?  Might they 
have been more heaviliy influenced by tradition than Bernard Comrie?


Shalom, Bryan