Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>]

I wrote:

> > It seems to me that Rolf calls ... any relationship between the
> > deictic centre (the time of the communication, which is normally the
> > speech time) and the time of the event "tense". ... Marion Johnson's
work supports Rolf's usage
> > here, but it has not yet become standard.

Rolf replied:

> ... tense is the relationship between 
> reference time (NB, not the event time) and the deictic center.

Right. My mistake. In Johnson's terms Tense is S:R, Aspect is R:E, and
Status is S:E (where S=speech time, R=reference time, and E=event time).

I do think that even after reading the basic works on tense and aspect,
there is room for confusion regarding the terms "reference time", "deictic
centre", and "aspect". Comrie noted the inconsistent use of terms in the
literature, yet he himself added to the confusion at times. And I do not
think Mari Broman Olsen's work is the place to learn what is standard usage.

Ken Penner
Ken Penner, M.C.S. (Biblical Languages, Greek Aspect), M.A. (Hebrew Poetry)
Ph.D. (cand.), McMaster University
pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca
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