Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 04/08/2005 14:05, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> > > 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.
>  

Well, if not a "fact", a word I didn't use, it has certainly been the 
predominant scholarly understanding for well over a century.

> 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.
>
>  
Chinese. Arabic. Burmese. Many others - although sometimes not quite 
purely so. This is not nonsense.

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