Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Well, I don't know if I am confused or not, but...

It seems to me that Randall is basically saying something like this:

The forms QATAL and WAYYIQTOL are used when both the aspect is perfective
and the tense is past.

The forms YIQTOL and WEQATAL are used when either the aspect is imperfective
or the tense is non-past.

The participle is used when the tense is present and the aspect is
imperfective, but continuous rather than habitual.

Or is it something like this table?

              Past       Present     Future

Perfective    QATAL      N/A         YIQTOL
              WAYYIQTOL              WEQATAL

Imperfective  YIQTOL     participle  YIQTOL
continuous    WEQATAL                WEQATAL

Imperfective  YIQTOL     YIQTOL      YIQTOL
habitual      WEQATAL    WEQATAL     WEQATAL

I am sure this is a serious oversimplification. But am I getting somewhere
close? I note that this is similar to Greek (but not Russian or English) in
that aspect distinctions are not made in the future. The difference is that
tense distinctions are not made fully in the imperfective.

Peter Kirk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: c stirling bartholomew [mailto:cc.constantine AT worldnet.att.net]
> Sent: 13 June 2001 21:28
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: yqtl patterns and Anson Rainey
>
>
> Greetings Randall,
>
> on 6/13/01 12:40 PM, Randall Buth wrote:
>
> > When the Hebrew writer/speaker needed to mark tense, the Hebrew verb
> > sufficed. When the Hebrew writer/speaker needed to mark aspect,
> the Hebrew
> > verb sufficed.
>

> Did the verb alone suffice? Does the verb actually bear the aspect
> information or does it come from somewhere else. Another way of
> asking this
> is: Can aspect be determined independtly of the verb inflection? If it can
> what level of significance should we attribute to the verb inflection as a
> "marker" of verb aspect. Does the verb inflection aspect marking cooperate
> with other language features to signify aspect?
>
> >(For those suddenly confused . . .
>
> How about those permanently bewildered.
>
>
> > Most of the time, time is the dominant characteristic.
>
> This can be demonstrated?
>
> > For example, most
> > prefix verbs and vav hahippux suffix verbs, when referring to
> the future, do
> > not present an "imperfective" in-process event:  "he will be
> coming . . .",
> > but to a singulative, perfective, future event: "he will come". That is,
> > most of those verbs are not "aspectually imperfective" . . .
>
> How can we determine that when a speaker wanted to mark time that they
> didn't want ot mark aspect? And also the obvious complement, when
> a speaker
> wanted to mark aspect that they didn't want to mark time? Again
> can this be
> demonstrated?
>
> I am a little quizzical about the notion that the verb suffices to mark
> aspect:
>
> >When the Hebrew writer/speaker needed to mark aspect, the Hebrew
> > verb sufficed.
>
> I am suggesting that "suffice" is too strong a word, since it
> seems to imply
> that the verb can pull this off all on its own.
>
> Peace Peace, (. . . but there is no peace)
>
> Clay
>
> --
> Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
> Three Tree Point
> P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
>
>