Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Randall Buth wrote:


>
>{rolf ruruli wrote}
>>The conclusion is therefore that in clauses with hayyom meaning "now", we
>>find the verb form qatal, yiqtol, wayyiqtol and the participle with
>exactly
>>the same meaning as far as time is concerned. How can any of them be
>tenses?
>
>how can they be tenses? --
>in the same way that in english we can say, in exactly the same situation:
>
>now we're dead
>now we're going to die
>now we will die
>how can any of them be either tenses or aspects?
>
>because paraphrase in a language does not mean absolute equivalency.
>
>please don't set-up "straw-men" -
>because with a BINARY SYSTEM like hebrew we are not dealing with pure tense
>or pure aspect but with tense-aspect-moods.


Dear Randall,

In the linguistic literature you will find many methods which have been
designed to test the grammatical nature of particular forms. To use time
adverbials to test whether a particular form semantically is a tense, is
legitimate in linguistic studies, and cannot be called  a "straw-men". It
is of course easier to work with adverbials such as "to-morrow" and
"yesterday" than "now", but what your example above shows, is not that
"now" is useless in the test, but that it may create problems because of
lack of precision.

Particularly (1) but also (2) is odd in English:

(1) The time now is exactly 8.59, I died now.
(2) The time now is exactly 8.59, I will die now

I agree that we must take paraphrase and idiomatic use into consideration,
not as an excuse for not explaining problematic texts, but as variables.
But of course, if we use paraphrase as an explanation we have the burden of
proof. How would you for instance explain the yiqtol and wayyiqtol of 2.
Samuel 3:8? As paraphrase?

When I ask the question: Does biblical Hebrew have tense?, I use "tense" in
its linguistic meaning which I have defined. Past tense is before the
deictic center and future tense is after the deictic center; neither of
them includes the deictic center. This means none the 55 wayyiqtols, 43
qatals, 7 yiqtols and  5 participles which are found in clauses with the
phrase  (AD HAYYOM HAZZE  ("until this day") are *past tense*. This is so
because all include the deictic center (the time of writing). It may be
argued that the Hebrew forms include both what in English is expressed by
past tense and by perfect. But if this is true, the Hebrew forms are not
past tense, because past tense per definition cannot include the deictic
center.

>
>what is a tense-aspect-mood?
>something that in certain situations SIGNALS TIME and that in other
>situations SIGNALS ASPECT and in other situations SIGNALS mood.
>
>why am i uneasy with "pragmatic implicatures"?
>because the suffix tense-aspect-mood and the prefix tense-aspect-mood are
>not marking pragmatics. nor do they uniquely mark any defined aspect. nor
>do they uniquely mark mood. nor are they unknowable.
>as for time reference, this is not only an implicature from a context,
>since the Tense-Aspect-Mood is used to signal (be in concord with) the time
>reference in many (most) contexts.


Are you saying that the Hebrew prefix form and the Hebrew suffix form both
are blends of tense-mood-aspect where in one situation a particular form
represents tense but not aspect (or mood?) and in another situation it
represents aspect but not tense? If this is what you are saying you
certainly have a great need for conversational pragmatic implicature. At
least is this the case in situations with verbs with pre-past meaning
(translated into English by pluperfect). There is no semantic pluperfect in
Hebrew, so why could not the same be true for other past meanings?

Two questions:
1) Is it linguistically meaningful to differentiate between past time and
past tense?
2) If the answer is yes, how do we do it in a scientific way (a way which
can be tested by others)?

Mari Broman Olsen, who follows the principles of P.H. Grice did such a test
with NT Greek, by a scrupulous differentiation between semantic an
pragmatic factors.  Her conclusion regarding aorist, which for the most
part is used with past meaning, is that it represents the perfective aspect
but is time indifferent. Her excellent methods have the advantage that they
are testable, and I follow a similar method in my study of Hebrew verbs.


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo