Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <zellmer AT digitelone.com>]

Peter,

While I am not sure your current topic is really addressing Rolf's
question, I don't think we have to go to all these examples from other
languages to answer the question posed in your thread subject.  Rocine
classifies qatals in dependent clauses as "relative  past background,"
relative to the event time (not the deictic time) of the verb.
Similarly, he classifies yiqtols in dependent clauses as "relative
non-past background," thus leaving open the question of present or
future to be answered on a case-by-case basis.

HTH,

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: <peter_kirk AT sil.org>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 1999 12:21 PM
Subject: Re[2]: Can Hebrew "tense" be relative to context not deictic


> Dear Joe,
>
> Thank you for your Greek examples. I had also thought that (NT) Greek
> did something similar to what I am saying for Hebrew, but could not
> confirm it so I shut my mouth on that one before I put my foot in it
> again! I can now see that this is clearest with participles.
>
> Russian also does something very similar with its gerunds (which are
> closely analogous to Greek adverbial participles). Quotes from "A
> Comprehensive Russian Grammar" by Terence Wade (Blackwell 1992)
> section 377-8: "The imperfective gerund denotes an action which is
> simultaneous to the action of the main verb. Either the two actions
> are simultaneous or one interrupts the other... The perfective gerund
> describes an action which is completed prior to the action denoted by
> the main verb... The perfective gerund may also denote a state
> resulting from the completion of an action... The verb in the main
> clause may be in any tense and either aspect."
>
> Indeed the same applies even in English with this type of
> construction:

<snip>