Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> Message text written by "Harold R. Holmyard III"
> >but they are aspects,
> in speaking of action as complete or incomplete. Thus both can be used of
> past time or future time.<
> 
> but they are not 'pure' aspects, either. When talking about future events
> the prefix verb is not usually referring to the ASPECT of the event, to an
> "in-process, incomplete" event, rather it usually refers to an aspectually
> complete (=perfective) event in the future. Thus YAVO is usually a simple
> 'he will come' rather than 'he will be coming'.

[snip]

Agreed.  That's why Hatav's work is so exciting.  By moving the 
main focus of the discussion out of the aspect realm and into the 
area of modality, she has resolved a lot of the problems associated 
with the aspect approach.  Hence, the suffix conjugation is "realis" 
mode and the prefix is "irrealis" which includes future.

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