Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Joseph,
> Dave Washburn wrote concerning: wayyiqtol represents a situation
> subjectively as Perfective:
>
> <<Aspect is not in view in the Hebrew verbal system>>
>
> I am unclear as to what that means.
>
> I was under the impression that the conjugations do not indicate tense, but
> indicate aspect (relation of an action to the passage of time.)
>
> Am I missing something here?

Not really.  The common approach since Driver's time has been to
see aspect as the fundamental force of each verbal form.  I just
happen to think that's wrong.  There are far too many counter-
examples.  Same goes for tense.  Galia Hatav has shown that one
feature of the primary verb forms (qatal, yiqtol, weqatal, wayyiqtol)
is modality: qatal and wayyiqtol are "realis" mode while yiqtol and
weqatal are "irrealis" mode (a category that includes future).  In my
view, the w-forms indicate a syntactic break with what precedes,
while the others (qatal and yiqtol) signal a syntactic connection of
some kind.  Syntactic connection includes, but is not limited to,
dependence and subordination.  It also includes things like
apposition and qualification by means of a preceding temporal
clause.  For the details of this view wrt wayyiqtol, see my 1994
article in Hebrew Studies, also available from my web page.

Aspect is a semantic phenomenon, built into the meaning of the
verb in question.  "Hit" is a perfective aspect, while "live" is an
imperfective aspect.  "He was born" is perfective while "He is a
Martian" is imperfective.  Semantics must be kept separate from
syntax for purposes of defining syntactic categories.  This is a
foundation-stone of transformational-generative grammar, and it
works.  There are those who reject the idea (see the introduction in
Waltke-O'Connor, for example), but IMO they do so to the
detriment of their theories.

In any case, aspect has been used to death, and it hasn't really
gotten us all that far.  It's time for another approach.

My two lepta worth,

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."