Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Paul Zellmer <zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph>]

Rolf Furuli wrote:

<snip>

> 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.

Rolf,

I purposely kept myself from responding to this thread *until this day* 
because the
arguments were so raw (please read that, unreduced) and the conclusions were 
so
philosophical that it was hard to find a specific conclusion with supporting 
evidence
to grab hold of.  But this one paragraph has finally shown where your logic 
is falling
short.

Even assuming that linguistic theory limits past tense by not allowing the 
inclusion
of the deictic center, a definition which I am not yet sold on, `aD HaYYoM 
HaZZeH does
not specifically require that the action be on-going.  `aD is a limiter.  It 
states
nothing about the activity occuring *at* HaYYoM HaZZeH.  Rather, it describes 
the
activity *up to that point*.  Rolf, it is not the equivalent of "now."  It's 
the
equivalent of "*until* now."  What is actually happening or not happening 
"now" is not
expressed (although idiomatic use may allow it to be implied.)  Therefore the 
phrase
would not prevent a verb form from being past tense, because `aD is not 
necessarily
inclusive.

Please do not interpret me to say that the Hebrew verb carries the linguistic 
sense of
tense.  I am merely pointing out that your touchpoint is not saying what you 
claim it
to be saying, so your conclusions on verbforms used with it are at least 
dubious.

Your method may be sound, but you have at least one glaring problem in your
assumptions.

I know we'll here more on this.

Paul

P.S. It is interesting to note that some languages use this concept of 
"until" in both
temporal directions.  (Not Hebrew, of course.)  They start with the deictic 
center and
move either forward or past in time up to a limiting point.  This is 
lagniappe, of
course, but it does imply that we should approach this type of preposition 
with
caution in linguistic analyses.

--
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Philippines

zellmer AT faith.edu.ph