Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 04/08/2005 16:31, Vadim Cherny wrote:

> ...
>
>
> Nonsense, Peter, nonsense. Arabic perfect is in no way--absolutely no
> way--different from the past tense. To say, "he was doing smth and stopped
> the action, though not completed it" you would use perfect, though the
> action is imperfect. So it is past tense.
> Arabic has standard instrument for the future tense, sa- prefix. In other
> words, Arabic has past (perfect), present (perfect), and future (sa-)
> tenses.
>
>  
Well, Vadim, I am not an expert on Arabic, but this is what I have 
heard. But as with Hebrew there may be some distinctions between older 
and modern Arabic. However, Chinese and Burmese are well known to be 
tenseless languages. Of course all of them have ways of specifying past 
and future time where really necessary, but not as part of the grammar 
of the language.

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