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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Stoney Breyer <stoneyb AT touchwood.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14
  • Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 20:12:10 +0100

On 15/09/2005 19:50, Stoney Breyer wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Vadim Cherny [mailto:VadimCherny AT mail.ru] Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 12:34 PM
To: Stoney Breyer; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14



VADIM: it is assumed that English has future tense.

SB: Of course English has future tense; it is not grammatical,

however,

but lexical. English utterances have tense but English *verbs* do not.


VADIM: write-wrote

SB: It ain't that simple.


I think you two need to use some terminology which distinguishes different verb forms or paradigms from the language of "tense". There are in English certainly two distinct forms which are conventionally labelled "present tense" and "past tense", or various modifications of those names. But those labels do not necessarily describe their meanings and/or uses accurately: some uses of the "present tense" are not present, and some uses of the "past tense" are not past.

And this is true all the more of Hebrew. We have been discussing a Hebrew verb form which Vadim calls "future tense" and others call "imperfect". Both of these are imperfect labels, although in my opinion "imperfect" is not very imperfect for biblical Hebrew - whereas "future tense" is appropriate for modern Hebrew. And so it is for a good reason that on this list and elsewhere this verb form is commonly labelled in a way which is semantically neutral, based only on the form: YIQTOL. It might help us all to avoid misunderstanding if we stick to this convention, when identifying the verb form rather describing than its semantics.

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



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