Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Matthew Anstey" <manstey AT portal.ca>]

Gday Bhaverim,

Thanks for your comments about learning BH. They have been most helpful. I
am still interested in that issue, but I have thought of another one that
bothers me a lot as well.

I can't remember if I  "recommended" Hatav (aspect-based) and Goldfajn
(tense-based) since I do not know enough, but I did find them interesting.
>From reading these books, and speaking to people at SBL, and the recent
posts, I am getting more confused than ever about whether the BH verb system
is tense or aspect or both (in various proportions.) Scholars, and very good
ones at that, seem divided about this. I don't even know how to assess these
arguments, which probably means reading more about linguistics (sigh!) and
more BH.

As I read around, there seems to be a common problem with the approach to
how to even answer the question. The method (assuming form determines
function) seems to me to be something like this:
1) Define Tense componentially
2) Define Aspect componentially
3) Delineate a Textual Corpus for study
4) Delineate particular Verb forms for study
5) Analyse 4) in 3) by criteria of 2) and 1);
6) Use results of 5) to categorise 4) into components from 1) and 2).
7) Explain all the exceptions from 6) with ideas such as "fossiled forms,"
"psychological perspective," etc.

[what _I_ gained from Hatav and Goldfajn is more sophistication with 2) and
1).]

But what I thought reading both these books is that there are a few problems
with this method, relating to these steps:

2.5) Why is not Define Semantics (componentially?) as a part of the process?
For instance, in German last night we did the past participle. The first
thing they told us is that verbs of movement from A to B use "sein" (and
gewesen and gebleiben) and the rest use "haben". (Ich habe geschreibt. Ich
bin gekommen.) So semantics is used to explain sentence construction here
isn't it?
3) I can understand leaving out Late BH, but can we safely omit poetry?
4)      i) why do scholars usually omit a particular verb form? (eg Goldfajn
omits qotel; both omit qetol, qatol etc). This seems to be like describing
English without reference to the participle.
        ii) why only verbs? surely non-verb forms signify both tense and/or 
aspect.
5) why do these analyses tend to group all yiqtols/qatals/etc together with
no reference to verb stem. If the binyamin denote different types of action
surely they must be a variable in aspect? Instead of asking, "what does qtl
do?" should we say "what does qal qtl do? what does niphal qtl do?" etc.
With 7 stems and 9 (or more) forms, that's 63 questions instead of 9
questions!

I imagine others would point out problems with other steps as well, but
these are the ones I think of when I read around. Is perhaps the problem is
that people are trying to solve the enigma of the _verbal_ system, rather
than the _BH_ system? That is, are we asking the wrong question when we say,
"Is the hebrew verb system tense or aspect?" We should instead say, "Is BH
tense or aspect?" So I was wondering if someone could suggest a better
method if they have one and/or theoretical considerations about this. It
seems we won't even get off the ground without a proper method, as in all
study.

Ever inquisitive,
Matthew Anstey