Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>]

there is an SBL volume coming out with Eisenbrauns 1999 on the
so-called verbless clause. I argue that the verbless clause is a
special case, with nonrealization of hyh. since that's the case, there
is a full "shadow paradigm" with hyh + participle, like any normal
language. it suggests that hayah qotel, wayhi qotel, etc, should be
elevated also to "verb forms".

at any rate, in my 1995 thesis on the hebrew of samuel-kings, I argued
that only the participle can be used for ongoing overlapping events;
the yiqtol systematically excludes the progressive, much like english
and other living languages. from there, it's easy to argue that hebrew
aspect is carried by the participle, like english, and that the
qatal/yiqtol both default for a nonprogressive or perfective reading,
like english.

there is no such thing as a "present tense" in my humble opinion.
there is a form in -s, that sometimes refers to generic or habitual
situations, but that's not its "meaning". reading Hound of the
Baskervilles, and noting many instances of the -s for past reference,
future reference, and thinking it's a good thing Ewald didn't get a
hold of English, or it'd be tenseless too. <sigh>

just some thoughts.

cheers
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Dr. Vincent DeCaen <decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto
Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~decaen/hsei/intro.html
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Truth, Mr. Roman Governor, is what you find at the end of a correct
chain of mathematical argument.
--a mathematician's answer to Pilate (J King, The Art of Mathematics)