Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

hope you enjoyed entering into the fun of the later examples.

{bryan rocine wrote:}
> because i am allowed to use the participle in perfectly clear present
time contexts does not
>mean it is a present tense, right?   {end quote}

everyone would agree that the participle is at least more than a present
tense. on the other hand if it is not the "form of choice" for signalling
such a present, then what ...?

{bryan wrote}
>especially if the participle is the imperfective instead, 
>because imperfectivity is so compatible with present time.{end}

so when and where are prefix verbs ["imperfective"? a semantic term--rb]
used for the something happening in an actualized "present"? 
are prefix verbs as compatible as BH grammar writers seem to assume? 
would they have been "forms of choice" for any of the hypothetical
examples?

{bryan:}
>>"I see the cows over there."
        a. ereh et ha-parot sham.
        b. ani roeh et ha-parot sham.
        c. ra'iti et ha-parot sham.
        d. ??

> how about d.:  hineh sham haparot  does that sound funny in Modern H: 
>"here, there are the cows"?  where are we?????   ;-)
{end quote}

it sounds OK if you are introducing the cows into the conversation. but
what about "my seeing"? 
    The above does illustrate nicely biblical hebrew teachers' problems if
struggling with "I see the cows over there". 
this is very similar to the psychological shock of hiking through a
wilderness area in one direction and then not recognizing anything after
turning around and looking from the other direction. eneni mitmatse ... [as
we would say in modern.  (=je ne me repere pas ...)]

{bryan wrote:}
>>"I am speaking to you right now."
        a. adabber elexa `ata 
        b. ani medabber elexa `ata
        c. dibbarti elexa `ata
        d. ani dover elexa `ata
        e. ??

>none are BH.   i don't think `atah is *really* a BH temporal adverb so
much
>as it is a pragmatic marker of culmination, either of a series of events
or
>of an arguement or exhortation.{end quote}

emet? (and you may always write an 'e', too.)   while it is true that `atta
is regularly an epistolary and rhetorical marker of reaching a significant
point of communication, it has a plain sense as well:
jud 11.7:  madua` ba'tem elay `ata? 
(or with participle) hag 2.3:  me atem ro'im oto `ata? [=how(as what) are
you seeing it now?"

>>"I am about to vomit"
        a. ani meqi'
        b. ani qarov lehaqi'
        c. ani `omed lehaqi' 
        d. hineni meqi'
        e. ani meqi' beqarov
        f. ??

>holek ... is not BH.  it is Modern.  [end quote]
naxon ---  BUT  it's not preferred modern hebrew either :-) 
[it's french, pidgin arabic and english!]
[`omed is mishnaic/modern, qarov+inf is poetic (is 13.22, 66.1) and i
wouldn't feel it appropriate for the example because of register and
because the biblical idiom joins with 'come/happen' and is not an auxillary
for a following  "content" verb]

{bryan wrote}
>i'm not saying the construction can't be found with a computer search. 
{end quote}

actually, i would say it couldn't be found. if it occurs in biblical hebrew
then it is biblical hebrew. but several of the 'examples' are not in the
bible and everything in me says that some of them wouldn't have been even
if the canon were two or three times as big. :-)

so what would a student say to a biblical hebrew teacher, after eating some
disagreable food on a nauseous stomach? 
would they run out of class with their mouth shut? --perhaps not bad advice
for someone in that predicament.
for the loquacious, i might recommend:  hineni meqi ...

braxot
randall