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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Vav consecutive Gen 1:3
  • Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 22:14:33 +0200

Dear Peter,

Please read Comrie, perhaqps his comments can help you.


Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




On 26/05/2004 11:35, furuli AT online.no wrote:


Dear Geroge,

By "preterite," do you mean "grqmmaticalized past tense," i.e. that the WAYYIQTOL is uncancellable past tense in any context, ...


Do such tenses exist in any language? Or is this merely a theoretical construct?

... just as English "went" and "walked"? ...


These are not uncancellably past. In "If I walked down the road now, I would meet my neighbours in their garden", "walked" is not past, because its past meaning is cancelled by the conditional construction. The same is true in "When my friend comes tomorrow, he will complain that he walked a long way, but I did tell him I would pick up him up at the station", because the past meaning is cancelled by its subordination to a future verb. And most languages are more flexible than English, not less, in their use of verb tenses.

... If so, is it possible to differentiate between "past tense" and "past reference," or are all verbs with past reference preterites? ...


I would suggest that all verb forms which indicate past time when used in unmarked contexts are past tenses or preterites. But most if not all of these verb forms can also be used with non-past reference in marked constructions, for example as relative past within a future. The details vary from language to language.

The exceptional cases of non-past WAYYIQTOL etc which you have listed are necessarily in marked constructions, because if there were not some kind of marking you would have no way of identifying them as non-past.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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