Biblical Hebrew Forum

[furuli AT online.no]

Dear Julie,

I am not sure I understand your methodology, I am not sure you 
understand mine. Regarding QATALs, I have taken the following steps:

1.  I have ascertained whether there is a diachronic bias in the 
meaning of finite verbs.
2.  I have addressed the question whether the verb semantics is 
similar in poetry and prose.
3. I have analyzed each QATAL of the Tanakh, DSS, and the inscrptions 
from the point of view of the relationship between event time (ET) 
and the deictic center (C). (More specific results would have been 
achieved if I could have used the relationship between the 
intersection of event time by reference time (RT) and the deictic 
center.  But that would have been circular reasoning, because then I 
had to decide which forms had which aspects (or tenses) before I 
started the analysis. My method gives cruder results because event 
time in some cases may last both before and after the deictic center, 
but the results are specific enough for my purpose).

The results gave a list of 965 examples of QATAL where event time 
came after the deictic center, which means future reference. Of 
these, less than 10 percent turned out to be future completed 
(usually translated by future perfect). On my list are several 
examples from Jeremiah 50, 51, and it is legitimate to refer to these 
QATALs as examples of future reference, and ask the list-members of 
their opinion.

To achieve the results, one needs to know the differences between C 
and RT and E, and one need to look at the context to find the 
relationship between C and E.  I need no "baseline theory of tense" 
or any "theory of Vision" to do this research.

If this approach is methodologically faulty, please point out where 
the fault is.



Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo






> Dear Rolf,
>
> First, I understand the necessity of narrowing ones' topic to a 
> manageable corpus, but what you've done by working within what 
> you've already *labeled* as prophetic skews your data.  I'm asking 
> you to look at the larger corpus, not just a small part which 
> <i/may/> be *elevated* or *irregular* in some way (as in 
> poetry...but not assuming that they are) , that is develop a 
> baseline theory of tense (beyond your genre).  Now, you may have 
> done this, but to put your view in context, you would need to 
> explain your findings, (which may take b-hebrew full circle...)
>
> Now, if we review the b-hebrew archives where this has been 
> discussed in detail, we see this done ad nauseum by men that are 
> better than I ;)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Julie :)
>
> _________________________________________________________________