Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

Jack,

You well may be right, I don't have a clue about Tagalog.
It could be, however, that the same bias affected its study, as was for
Hebrew.
I guess, Polynesians don't have a large body of written literature, and are
generally moderately educated (a guess, not an assertion), and cannot very
well relay to scholars and translators subtle semantical differences, such
as between tenses and the completion aspects.
Myself, I don't see major difference between completed aspect ('having
studied') and the past tense. I cannot imagine how scholars could establish
that Polynesians mean aspect, not tense in this case. For example, consider
a hypothetical Polynesian who studied but did not graduate. If Tagalog has
aspects, that Polynesian should use imperfect in describing his studies. My
guess, he would use perfect - which would therefore be not perfective
aspect, but past tense.

Vadim Cherny


> You incorrect on one point.  There is at least one language
> which has verb inflection but no tense.  Tagalog, an
> Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language, has verbs that
> inflected (both prefixes and infixes) but only for aspect,
> not tense.
>
> Taking verb root ? aral ? which means ? study ? you can add
> a prefix mag to make the infinitive ? mag-aral.  The verb
> can be then conjugated in the active voice (or Subject
> Focus as is sometimes called) to nag-aral, nag-a-aral, and
> nag-a-aral, indicating respectively ? having studied
> (Perfect - action completed), studying (Imperfect - action
> in process), and intending to study (Contemplated -
> intended action).   There  is a different put parallel four
> part conjugation in the passive voice (or Object Focus)-
> pi-nag-aral-an, pi - nag-a ? aral-an, and pag-aaral.  You
> can think of Tagalog as having two stems.
>
> I have been lead to believe that other, if not all, of the
> Austronesian languages are inflected in terms of aspect but
> not tense but certainly Tagalog is.
>
>
> Jack Tladatsi
>