Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Dear Bryan,

I found your definitions given below interesting. It seems that your 
definition of suffixed forms is now close to that of the perfect in 
English or (NT/Koine) Greek, as something like an indication of the 
present result of a past action. This ties up with my feeling that 
QATAL should nearly always be translated by an English perfect 
(present perfect or past perfect), or by something logically 
equivalent e.g. "is sitting" instead of "has sat down". This, to me, 
applies equally when the QATAL is preceded by HINNE, hence my problem 
with "Ariyel's Flower".

Thus whoever named the QATAL "perfect" was actually (even if 
accidentally) spot on! Maybe Hebrew is not so far away from the three 
aspect system found in Greek and English: QATAL corresponds to English 
perfect, long YIQTOL to progressive, and short YIQTOL/WAYYIQTOL to 
simple/aorist. I know this model needs more work, and that I have left 
modality out of the picture.

To clarify my rough correspondences:

Hebrew          Greek                   English

ya`aseh         poiw, epoioun           s/he is/was doing
(way)ya`as      epoihsa (poihsw?)       s/he does/did
`asah           pepoihka, epepoihkhn    s/he has/had done

I wonder how well this corresponds with your thinking?

I am not suggesting that WEQATAL is in any way "perfect". That, to me, 
is a separate issue.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: YIQTOL with past meaning
Author:  <brocine AT earthlink.net> at Internet
Date:    29/01/2000 09:13

<snip>

You must understand that I *agree* with you that all the 
prefixed forms, including long, short, clause-initial, 
clause-medial, and wayyiqtol share a common signification. 
However, I prefer not to label that meaning as either 
perfective, imperfective, or even aspectual (in and of 
itself).  I prefer to call it *writer's subjective 
viewpoint*, something that is applied in the corpus with 
great TAM flexibility.  I prefer to call the prefixed forms 
fientive, as expressing emerging action (as opposed to the 
suffixed forms that express attributions or "the state the 
subject is in at the time being talked about").  I believe 
my explanation is, in fact, very close to yours, but it is 
quite friendly to discourse analysis, more friendly to 
comparative Semitics, and more respectful of the orthodox 
terminolgy of TAM studies.

Shalom,
Bryan

<snip>