Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

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

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] tenses - Ex 3:14
  • Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 00:02:42 +0100

On 17/09/2005 07:53, 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.


No, Vadim, you asserted this, and others demonstrated that none of the examples you gave supported your assertion.

Please offer me just one example, where yiqtol is not a future tense in the
sense I described above.


I will give you a lot of them already posted by Michael:

Present tense
Deuteronomy 1:44 "they pursued you, as the bees do"
Genesis 32:32 "the children of Israel do not eat"
Genesis 37:15 "What seekest thou?"
1 Samuel 11:5 ""What aileth the people that they weep?"

Past tense
Judges 11:40 "the daughters of Israel went from year to year"
Job 1:5 "In this manner used Job to do all the time"
Genesis 29:2 "out of that well they watered"


You attempted to answer some of these examples, but in none of them did you demonstrate that the action is future relative to any deictic point assumed by the narrator. All you argued was that some of these are rendered in Russian and English by particular verb forms which sometimes have a future sense - but in these cases do not.


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



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.1/104 - Release Date: 16/09/2005





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page