Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Moon-Ryul Jung" <moon AT saint.soongsil.ac.kr>]

Dear Rolf, I have some comments on your treatment of subordinate temporal 
clauses:

You wrote:

(1) John had already left when Mary emerged from the cupboard.
(2) When John had left, Mary emerged from the cupboard.

What is the point of reference in (1) and (2)? It is Mary's emerging. This
is a point in the past, and John left prior to this point. This means that
John's leaving represents a past situation in the past (both being prior 
to
speech time), thus being pluperfect. 

What is interesting with these
examples in our context, is that the *clause* in which a verb occurs (
whether it is a main clause or a subordinate clause) is not important. The
emerging of Mary is the point of reference both when it occurs in a main
clause (2) and in a subordinate clause (1). 

Moon: The above explanation goes against my intuition and computational
linguistics which I learned. For me , the "when" clause introduces the 
reference time for the main clause both (1) and (2). In (1) the reference
time is time RT at which Mary's emerging is completed (at least in 
one interpretation of (1) ). John's leaving is described to have been 
completed relative to this RT. In (2), the reference time is
 time RT in the past relative to which John's leaving is completed. 
Mary's emerging is described to happen relative to this RT.
So, it is more intuitive and simpler to think that the "when" clause
introduces the RT relative to which the main clause is described, rather 
than to think that the emerging of Mary is the RT whether it occurs
in the main clause or in the subordinate clause. 


Let me try to understand the following example from my point of view:

(3) Jer. 1:5 Before I formed you (YIQTOL) in the womb I knew (QATAL) you,
and before you were born (YIQTOL) I consecrated (QATAL) you;

Though you reject the idea of the "future in the past" which Peter
suggests, I think the idea is reasonable enough to explain example (3).
If we accept the suggestion of Hatav, who argues that yiqtol is modal
which includes the concept of future, we can make sense of (3),
without having to argue that the YIQTOL here is past. 
Also we can think that the writer does not consider it important
whether the forming in the womb and being born are the
event in the past (already completed) at the time of writing.
The concern of the writer was to describe when the Lord knew him
and consecrated him. His base reference (reference time zero, RT0) is
in the past, so to speak, rather than the time of writing. 
I think Niccatti suggested the same idea, when he said that 
the deitic point in narratives is in the past. )
If so, that is, if the writer's base reference time is in the past,
the use of modal/future YIQTOL in the before-clause in (3) seems to 
make sense.   

Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Dept of Computer Science
Soongsil University
Seoul, Korea