Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Alviero Niccacci <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>]

On  02/01/00 (Re: <wayyiqtol> again (G.Hatav)) Rolf Furuli wrote:


> Dear Alviero,
>
> You wrote the following to Galia, and sorry to say, I am more confused than
> ever about what you mean by "tense". Bernhard Comrie ("Tense", 1985, vii)
> defines tense as "a grammaticalization of location in time". I understand
> this to mean that "tense" is semantic, i.e. it is connected with verb
> *forms* and not with verb *function*. For example, a verb that *is* a
> preterit ( such as "went" and "bought") is a preterit in all kinds of
> discourses and contexts. The only exceptions will be special cases where an
> idiomatic use allows a seemingly non-past use. But such a use must be
> accounted for and cannot just be claimed.
> Is this also your understanding of "tense"? Or put differently, when we see
> a WAYYIQTOL in poetry and prose, in mainline and background, can we take
> for granted that the meaning is past, i.e. that the reference time is
> before the deictic point?



> >
> > 5) (AN) Again, no. By tense I mean a fix reference in time--past,
> > present, and future.  English nicely distinguishes between
> > chronological time and grammatical tense. What we have in a text is
> > tense, not time. Tense and time may coincide or diverge. It is the
> > author who decides, and the verbforms he uses reflect his decisions.
> > IMO it is not correct to invoke the time of the event in order to
> > establish the value of the verbforms. In other words, in the text we
> > read the way the speaker/writer organized his information in a
> > structured way--according to HIS time, irrespective of the
> > chronological time. The time of the EVENTS themselves remains outside
> > the tex and we have to recover it by interpretation. That is why I am
> > always unease when one brings into the discussion of the verbal
> >system the category of event-time.
> >


Dear Rolf Furuli,

Sorry for the confusion I caused you. I suppose Comrie's definition 
above says exactly what I mean. The excerpt of my answer to G. Hatav 
you quoted exactly represents my idea. If I am not mistaken, most of 
what I said comes from H. Weinrich, _Tempus_, a book that is 
unfortunately forgotten or ignored.
Best wishes.
Alviero Niccacci
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum      Tel. +972 - 2 - 6282 936
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