Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Peter Kirk wrote:



>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


Dear Peter,

I am sorry but I do not understand the meaning of your post.  My questions
were related to one of the most fundamental sides (and perhaps the most
neglected one) of the aspect case, namely, whether or not Hebrew aspects
have a relationship with or in any way represent time. This is highly
appropriate for b-hebrew.  I did not suggest a general linguistic
discussion of aspect but only a language-specific one, namely a comparison
of English and Hebrew aspect.  That this is justified, is seen by the fact
that English-speaking students almost automatically starts to compare the
Hebrew verbal system with the system of their mother tongue.

Aspect is an important term in all modern Hebrew grammars, and this is of
course also the case with "perfective" and "imperfective". To suggest that
we should avoid these terms on b-hebrew does not make sense to me.  To say
that a comparison of aspects simply is a comparison of verb paradigms
betrays little familiarity with the aspect literature. An important reason
for misunderstandings when things are discussed, is that terms are used
differently, so it is important for all of us to define our terms. I
therefore suggest that Bryan answer the questions I asked.


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo