Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Saturday 17 September 2005 00:53, Vadim Cherny wrote:
> > >Tense describes the reference time from narrator's point of view.
> > >
> > >That is to say, future tense must refer to the future from the
> > > narrator's deictic centre, and past tense likewise.
> > >
> > >Now, narrator's deictic centre might be shifted, and so future tense
> > >sometimes refers to the past events - from the point of view of the
>
> reader
>
> > >or of narrator's contemporaries. This is still future tense.
> > >
> > >Does that seem reasonable?
> >
> > Reasonable, but this definition of "future tense" does not apply to the
> > YIQTOL form in biblical Hebrew. This has already been demonstrated in
> > numerous examples.
>
> I don't understand. In recent discussion, I demonstrated that yiqtols are
> employed consistently as future tense with deictic shifts - on all the
> examples offered by the respondents. And I saw no objections from you. Now
> you say that yiqtol is not future tense.

Perhaps you didn't get response because you didn't "demonstrate" anything, 
you 
merely suggested or made a claim.  There's a big difference.  It's easy to 
say "I think this is what it means," but it's not so easy to back it up with 
real evidence that can't be controverted, and merely doing the former does 
not constitute "demonstrating" anything, much less does it constitute your 
previous claim to have "proved decisively" that your claim is true.

If you want to see examples where yiqtol is not future tense, see any number 
of Rolf's posts.  For myself, I have stayed out of this discussion because 
it's clear you're not listening to anybody else.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Maybe I'll trade it for a new hat."