Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

> >I know I will be sorry for this - but how do you "experts"
> >rationalize that "Ehyeh" is "I am" and not "I will be"?
> >
> "I will be" is modern Hebrew. But it has long been known that in
> biblical Hebrew this "imperfect" or prefix form is often used in past
> and present contexts, and that the main element distinguishing it from
> the "perfect" or suffix form is that the action is continuing or
> repetitive, like the Russian imperfective aspect.
>
Peter forgot to tell that this is not a fact, but a convenient option for
exegesis.
Russian, for that matter, has both tenses and aspects. English, too, has
aspects, though they are grammatical constructs, not single words. What
language has aspects but not tenses? Nonsense.

Vadim Cherny