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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53
  • Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 10:02:37 +0200


Dear Vadim,

Over a period of ten years I have analyzed all the more than 70.000 verbs of the Tanakh, the DSS and the inscriptions as to temporal reference, modality and different discourse functions. My conclusion, for which I present more than one thousand examples in my thesis, is that Classical Hebrew has no tenses but two aspects (with very different characteristics compared with their English counterparts). The forms YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, and WEYIQTOL all represent the imperfective aspect and QATAL and WEQATAL represent the perfective aspect. The view of the "reversal of tense" by WE- WAY(Y) collides head on with the data material.

There are two basic weaknesses in previous studies:

1. There is no systematic attempt to differentiate between past tense and past reference.
2. Definitions of English aspects are applied uncritically to Hebrew aspects, without any attempt to study the Hebrew aspects in their own right and find their real nature.

Before these weaknesses are remedied, the study of Hebrew verbs jus lead to dead ends.


Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo







Dear Rolf,

You can't be serious on that. Out of head, 90% of wa's reverse the tense.
Those that don't represent probably the same percentage of the erroneous
tenses as encountered in the verbs without wa. Wa's overwhelmingly do
reverse the tense, wouldn't you agree with this?

QATAL and WEQATAL: "In
conclusion, there is no evidence that qatal and weqatal are separate
and independent conjugations or that they have different origins.
I agree that there is no difference between the two forms - weqatal
is a qatal with the conjunction WAW prefixed.<


Best regards,

Vadim





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