Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Rolf,

You wrote to Bryan,

"...Do you claim that events in Hebrew expressed by the perfective 
aspect *allways* are terminated and events expressed by the 
imperfective aspect always are continuing at reference time?  If the 
answer is yes, Hebrew aspect is similar to English aspect as far as 
time is concerned, if the answer is no, Hebrew aspect is different 
from English aspect in this respect. Yes, it may possibly mean that 
Hebrew aspect is not concerned with time at all, as I claim."

May I ask what you mean here by "Hebrew aspect" and "English aspect"? 
It seems to me as if you are here using it to mean "different 
Hebrew/English verb paradigms". But earlier in the same posting you 
were discussing aspect as a general linguistic concept rather than as 
one tied to specific languages. I fear that you are further clouding 
already muddy waters by using the word "aspect" in such a range of 
different ways. The question you raise in this paragraph would be 
better described as the question of how far the distinctions between 
Hebrew verb paradigms correspond to the distinctions between English 
verb paradigms.

Since the debate about the meaning of the term "aspect" is hardly 
relevant to this forum, can I suggest that both you and Bryan try to 
rephrase your arguments without using this term (or "perfective" and 
"imperfective"). After all, it hardly helps clarity of your argument 
to use terms which (as you claim) do not have a single generally 
agreed definition.

Peter Kirk