Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Dear Peter, 
unitl I see a strong evidence for Galia's assumption that 
wayyiqtol is different from English simple past (minus stative verbs),
I would agree to what you wrote below. But I think that in English
simple past clauses can continue past perfect clauses. Consider:

a. John went into the florist shop.
b. He had promised mary some flowers.
c. She said that she wouldn't forgive him if he forgot.

Clause a establishes the reference time for clause b.
The reference time of clause c is set to the event time
of clause b, which is before the reference time of clause b. 

If this example can be acceptable to English speakers, then
we must say that simple past can continue past perfect. 

Sincerely,

Moon-RyulJung, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Computer Science
Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea



> Dear Galia,
> 
> Thank you for your helpful comments, also for Bryan's further comment. 
> Just to clarify things, I was not trying to suggest a perfect 
> correspondence, rather that the differences were not great and that it 
> might be instructive to examine them. It still seems to me that for 
> non-stative verbs the difference is small: simple past and wayyiqtol 
> are generally sequential but can be used (though perhaps not 
> preferred) for past within past; whereas the preferred form for past 
> within past is past perfect and X-qatal. One more difference is that 
> in Hebrew X-qatal is continued with wayyiqtol, whereas English 
> continues with past perfect.
> 
> Peter Kirk

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Dear Moon,

Thank you for your examples. I, as a native English speaker from a 
rather conservative British background, would prefer "She had said" in 
your clause c., but your clauses are acceptable in everyday use. 
However, I think there is a difference from Hebrew: wayyiqtol is the 
normal continuation after X-qatal, and a further X-qatal indicates a 
shift even further into the past, doesn't it? But this is not the case 
in English. Then perhaps English is undergoing one of those tense 
shifts like the one between standard and late BH.

Peter Kirk