Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> Dear Friends,
> Does anyone have of a concise statement of the difference in
> meaning/aspect between the Hebrew perfect and imperfect?  And perhaps an
> example or two to illustrate the differences?  Cheers.
> Mike D.
> 
Nobody knows for sure.  Ask a dozen grammarians and you'll likely 
get a dozen different answers.  A couple of good starting points are 
my Hebrew Studies 1994 article "Chomsky's Separation of Syntax 
and Semantics" and Galia Hatav's book "The Semantics of Aspect 
and Modality" published by John Benjamins.  

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No study of probabilities inside a given frame can ever
tell us how probable it is that the frame itself can be
violated."  C. S. Lewis