Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <speederson AT erols.com>]

Well, if we lump together all of the prefix forms, we get uses in BH showing
past, present, future, modal, volitive, and probably just about any other
use of a tense form you can conceive.  It seems to me that the trend is
toward seeing the expression of what we call "tense" in English, meaning the
time of the action relative to the speaking perspective, as a more complex
matter in BH than whether the verb is conjugated with a prefix.  More and
more, context and the positioning of words in the sentence is becoming a
relevant issue, and many do still make a distinction between such forms as
wayyiqtol, yiqtol/yibneh, and yiqtol/yiben.  The expression of time is often
viewed as somehow related to the tense form, but not in a one-to-one sense.
Of course, there are many differences of opinion, and this is still an area
where consensus seems almost impossible, but that's how the shape of current
scholarship looks to me.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mathias van den Bossche [mailto:m.vdb AT free.fr]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 11:40 AM

> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: future tense / inaccomplished aspect
>
>
> Just a question after this discussion about "to be".
>
> I wonder whether the "prefix verb" conjugation was actually
> a true future tense in biblical times.
>
> I thought this future tense use was a rather modern thing in
> Hebrew. I actually thought this "prefix verb" conjugation was
> in biblical times the way to describe inaccomplished (roughly :
> present and future, and also, future in the past) actions, in
> the same way as in other semitic languages (e.g. Arabic). My
> idea was that the future-tense use of this conjugation had
> emerged in contact with non-semitic languages. Am I wrong ?
> What are the current trends about this point ?
>
> Thanks
>
> Mathias van den Bossche - new in the list !
> http://occitanet.free.fr
>
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