Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Rolf,

It seems that despite your posting on discontinuing discussion you are 
continung to interact with my earlier postings on this thread as well 
as Moon's posting. So let me continue this discussion in the language 
of Comrie in which we both seem to have some competence.

In the passage you quoted, Comrie gives various different examples of 
the pluperfect in English, in which "the situation in question is 
located prior to [a] reference point":

(1) (reference point given by a time adverbial)
    "John had arrived by six o'clock yesterday evening."
(your (1) and (3) are similar to this)

(2) (reference point given by a main clause to which the clause 
containing the pluperfect is subordinate)
    "when John had left, Mary emerged from the cupboard"

(3) (clauses in the inverse relation)
    "John had already left when Mary emerged from the cupboard."

(4) (reference may be given more generally by the context)
    "the clock struck ten; John had already left"

In English, how do we know which is the reference point and which is 
the clause which is located in time relative to it? This is quite 
clear in English: the relative time location clause is signalled by 
the pluperfect verb form. The same is true of Comrie's

(5) "John arrived; Mary had already left before I arrived."

which is indeed past in the past, similar to (3), and signalled as 
such by the pluperfect. By the way, Comrie's use of the term 
"reference point" is somewhat confusing: in a sentence like "In the 
year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord..." (Isaiah 6:1), in 
common or historical parlance one might think of the date as the 
reference point, but in Comrie's usage the reference point would be 
Isaiah's vision."

Now Comrie could give a similar set of examples using future in the 
past. We have to be careful in English because the original tense 
indicating future in past ("would" forms) has a restricted use in 
modern English, mostly in indirect speech and analogous constructions 
like "I expected that John would come by six o'clock". But we can use 
"was going to" more widely for future in the past. So following 
Comrie's logic we can write in analogy to (1-4); here "the situation 
in question is located" after the "reference point":

(6) (reference point given by a time adverbial)
    "John was going to arrive after six o'clock yesterday evening."
or  "At six o'clock yesterday evening, John was yet to arrive."

(7) (reference point given by a main clause to which the clause 
containing the pluperfect is subordinate)
    "when John was going to leave, Mary emerged from the cupboard"

(8) (clauses in the inverse relation)
    "John was going to leave when Mary emerged from the cupboard."

(9) (reference may be given more generally by the context)
    "the clock struck ten; John was going to leave"

In (7), and only (7), we can substitute "before" for "when" (so I 
agree with you that using "before" rather than "when" etc often only 
clarifies the time relationship rather than changing it):

(10) "before John was going to leave, Mary emerged from the cupboard"

though in fact the following is rather more natural if John actually 
did leave:

(11) "before John left, Mary emerged from the cupboard"

For the sentence (10) with "before" carries a subtle suggestion that 
John actually did not leave, that perhaps he changed his mind on 
seeing Mary. On the other hand, the same sentence with "when", (7), 
does not carry this nuance, because if we substitute "when" for 
"before" in (11) the time relationships are different (so here 
"before" and "when" are not synonymous).

My suggestion is quite simply that the Hebrew B:+EREM is used in 
Jeremiah 1:5 and 47:1 (and in most of its other usages) in the same 
way as "before" in sentence (10) above, with a relative non-past 
YIQTOL. In Hebrew (in a subtle difference from English) there is 
perhaps no suggestion that the event did not actually happen, thus the 
situation is closer to (7) than (10). This is hardly new, as it is at 
least implicit in Gesenius' comments and Waltke and O'Connor's 
examples. But we do occasionally find B:+EREM with QATAL, which is 
similar to (11). In some cases (I remember one in Psalms and one in 
Proverbs) this is perhaps to avoid any element of doubt that the event 
happened, in these cases that God created the earth.

Let me say that your examples (2) and (4) with "will have" forms in 
English are not relevant here. This tense represents not future in the 
past but rather past in the future. These examples correspond to my 
(1) (which is Comrie's) shifted into absolute future time. We have 
come across such examples in Hebrew in past discussions of QATAL with 
allegedly future meaning. The present discussion is of YIQTOL with 
allegedly past meaning.

So, to go back to Jer 1:5 (first half, I assume the second half to be 
exactly parallel in the temporal significance of verb forms):

      B:+EREM )EC.FWR:KF              BAB.E+EN    Y:DA(:T.IYKF
   A. Before  I formed you            in the womb I knew you
or B. When    I was going to form you in the womb I knew you
or C. Before  I formed you            in the womb I had known you

The translation A is NIV. B is my analysis which is analogous to (7), 
the reference point is "I knew you". C is an alternative which is 
analogous to (3) in reverse order, the reference point is "I formed 
you". I think we can choose between the two by looking at which event 
is the new information in focus here. Which is the event in focus, the 
new information, in Jeremiah 1:5? Surely it must be "I knew you". 
Which is the event in focus or the new information in (3) and (7)? 
Surely in both it is "Mary emerged from the cupboard". In the English 
sentences above, the event in focus is always the one which has the 
absolute tense and is the "reference point" in Comrie's terminology, 
and the relative tense is always given to the verb which is not in 
focus, to the event which is located relative to the reference point. 
For this reason I would reject translation C as putting the focus on 
"formed", and would prefer translation B (though translation A is 
better still). To put it another way, I am arguing for an analysis 
like (7) rather than like (3).

I would want to look more carefully at all examples of +EREM before 
coming to any definite conclusions. But it does seem to me that I have 
made a reasonable case here for my argument that +EREM signals future 
in the past, and without using the language of Rocine, Niccacci etc 
which you find so hard to understand.

Peter Kirk



______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: RE[6] (CC:Rolf, Peter, Niccatti,Hatav) Can Hebrew tense
Author:  <furuli AT online.no> at Internet 
Date:    10/10/1999 13:57


Dear Moon,

Thank you for your questions and observations. My comments come in between 
your text.

<snip>

RF:
Let me quote a long portion from Bernard Comrie "Tense, 1985, p 65,66:

<snip>

(1) At the rising of the sun John had already come.

(2) At the rising of the sun, John will have come.

<snip>

(3) Before sunrise John had already come.

(4) Before sunrise John wil already have come.

Will the analysis be different because we have introduced the time 
adverbial/conjunction "before"? I say no! C is still speech time, and the 
tenses of the verbs are relative to the same RT. I still stick to my words 
to Peter that I have never seen anything like this suggestion that B+RM 
should make such a construction "futures" in the past.

<snip>


Regards
Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo