Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Rolf Furuli wrote:

> This means that Hebrew aspects as you, Alviero, and myself define them are
> completely different from the English ones, and therefore the question is
> appropriate: What is the relationship between Hebrew aspects and time? Does
> the perfective aspect uniformely signal that the end was reached at RT and
> the imperfective aspect uniformely signal that it was not reached? And if
> not, what relation has the end of an event to each aspect? With all respect
> to the sincerity and list-memebers knowledge of Hebrew, it does not seem
> that any member has pondered over these questions (If I am wrong, please
> tell me). And this is the very heart of aspect theory!

If, by pondering, you mean, "to think about, reflect on," you are wrong.  
However, if
you are implying the reaching of a cogent conclusion, or even the opinion 
that a
single cogent conclusion is possible in this language that uses so few tools 
(verb
forms, even with modifiers) to do so much, for my part, you may well be right.

Just like the English past is used too broadly to allow it to have aspect 
according to
Broman-Olsen's treatment, I see the Hebrew verb forms as each falling in the 
same
category.  Aspect per se does not appear to be solely determined on the 
word-level in
this language.  The clause-level *may* be a different case, but I'm not 100% 
convinced
of even that.

Regards,

Paul

--
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Isabela, Rep. of Philippines

zellmer AT cag.pworld.net.ph